If The Fates Allow
by AgiVega
Summary: Ginny has been forced to marry Draco, but her heart still belongs to Harry. Will she ever break free from this unwanted marriage? Will Harry help her? Join them on their odyssey through despair and hope, faith and love, amidst Voldemort’s machinations.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: **Hello everyone! I'm back with a new story at last! :)

Back in May I promised you to come out with a new fic in September or October, and today is still October, so I haven't broken my promise ;) The story isn't fully finished yet, but I decided to upload its first chapter (that is rather a prologue) as a Halloween treat.

**To my faithful readers who followed the 'greatest' series**: this story has absolutely nothing to do with that series. The trilogy is finished, I might some day write more outtakes from it, but I'm not sure yet. This fic is completely different, as it is based on all five HP books.

I must warn you that this fic is rather dark, compared to my trilogy. Hence the main genre: drama. But don't worry, you'll have plenty of opportunity to laugh, my friend Kati said she was in stitches for several times when reading the fic.

While posting my trilogy I got criticism from several people saying that the characters (especially Harry and Ginny) were shallow and two-dimensional. In this fic I tried to make them have a real character, I hope I succeeded. While in the trilogy Harry was like a perfect, noble knight (at least according to Kati), in this story he won't be nearly as perfect, he'll have shortcomings, he'll be more fallible – he'll be more human. It is his mistakes that make the story darker.

I decided on PG-13 rating (as usual), not R, however, there will be some scenes that come close to R rating, although they don't reach it.

You know I love drawing, and I have made up something unusual: I illustrated every single chapter of the fic. On schnoogle I've seen many authors who asked other people to illustrate their stories – well, I thought why ask someone, if I could do it myself? I'm going to put the links to the illustrations into my bio, check them out there (or you can also view them in my yahoo group). Links to the 'coverart' and the first chapter are already up.

This fic is heavily based on Greek mythology, so if you're not at all familiar with Greek mythology but wish to understand everything, then either try and read up on the topic a bit, or just ask me if something's not clear :)

**To Draco Malfoy fans**: please don't get me wrong, I like Draco, I truly do, but I rather like him as an evil bastard. And you have to admit that the Draco displayed in JKR's books IS a bastard. He will be one in this story, too.

**To D/G shippers**: this is pretty much a D/G bashing fic. If you already know you'd hate me for it, then don't read. I'd like to avoid shipping debates, because I know they can get really nasty.

**I would like to say thanks to:**

- J. K. Rowling for finally getting OotP out (it was high time, Jo!)

- Mum who gave me lots of advice and many great ideas

- Kati who always told me her opinion, even if it was bad, and helped me with Greek names and customs

- Michael for his arduous beta work, his help with the Latin phrases and his suggestions on certain quotes (he even co-authored a poem with me! Thanks!)

- Terry Deary whose brilliant book _The Groovy Greek_ gave me inspiration (read it if you're interested in stuff about the ancient Greek, or if you need a good laugh)

**Disclaimer**: the Harry Potter universe belongs to the wonderful J. K. Rowling, I own only the OCs made up by me.

IF THE FATES ALLOW 

_by AgiVega_

Prologue/Chapter 1 

_"I love and I hate. You ask me why this is so;_

_I do not know, but I feel it, and it torments me._"

(Catullus)

_1942_

He felt disgusted. Disgusted – with himself. He stole a glance at the woman standing next to him, deeply immersed in perusing his last homework. Her eyebrows were furrowed, her eyes skimming the paper.

He watched as her sky blue eyes narrowed in concentration, then his glance shifted a little lower, to stop on her cherry coloured lips that she was unconsciously chewing. He shuddered and looked away.

This couldn't be. This couldn't be happening to him! Yet, when he looked at her, he felt an odd sensation in his stomach that slowly crept upwards to his heart, leaving a fiery trail inside of him, burning in his midsection like some internal conflagration.

No, this really wasn't _supposed to be_ happening to him. Not when this woman belonged to the race of people he despised. Not when this woman came from a family that was so like the family of his father's… not when she was nothing but a filthy little Mudblood.

However, when she looked up from his paper and one of her red-gold locks slipped from her back to her bosom, he _knew _it was happening to him. 

Like it or not, Tom Riddle had a crush.

"I'm sorry, Riddle," she said in her mellifluous voice that made his inners quiver like jelly, "but I can't agree with you. See, the incantation you gave here is incorrect. It seems to me that you confused these two curses. Their incantations are pretty similar, I have to give it to you, but this one here makes the victim grow hair all over his face, while the other one allows you to get into someone else's mind. Actually the latter belongs to the Dark Arts…" she paused and gave him a scrutinising look. "I wonder how you got to knew about it at all. Such curses are not included in your set books…"

"What if I read about them in the Restricted Section?" Tom gave her an angelic-innocent look.

"Don't even joke about something like that, Riddle," she frowned.

"I was just wondering," he fidgeted closer to her, "what you'd do if you could prove that I have illegally entered the Restricted Section… just curious, professor."

"Well, of course I'd report you to Headmaster Dippet."

"Would you, really?" he arched an eyebrow at her, his gaze boring into hers, as though he was trying to glimpse into the depth of her soul.

"Don't… don't stare at me like that," she whispered.

"Why not?" he asked with a tiny smile.

"Because… because it makes me feel uneasy… Riddle."

"Tom."

"What?"

"Call me Tom."

"Why?" she gulped.

"Don't ask. Just say it. I want to hear you say it, Adela…"

"It's Professor Springfield to you, Rid…" but she couldn't finish her sentence, because he suddenly pressed his lips to hers, silencing her.

"Riddle!" she shouted as she felt his grip on her loosen and had a chance to push him back. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Kissing you?" he asked with a confident smirk.

"How… how dare you?" she stuttered, backing away from him. However, he kept following her, until she was pressed to the wall, with no way to escape.

"Say Tom. I want to hear it from your mouth," he whispered, their faces only inches apart.

"T…tom," she muttered, not daring to look into his eyes.

He reached out and cupped her chin, forcing her to face him. "Say it again."

"Tom."

"See, you can do it," he moved his thumb up and down on her cheek, caressing it. He had never, never ever caressed a single creature – not human, not animal – before. He felt her whole body tremble as he was pressed to her. "I have always hated being called Tom, but from your mouth even my filthy Muggle father's name sounds as sweet as honey."

She seemed to have been awoken from some trance. "Filthy? Filthy Muggle? My parents are Muggles, too!" she hissed, her anger giving her enough strength to toss the boy away and free herself from his grip.

"Muggles… who have found it a disgrace that you were born a witch, so I heard…" he folded his arms, looking casual.

"How… how do you know?" she paled.

"Do you think I haven't done a little research into your past?" he leaned against the cupboard in which Professor Springfield was storing her Defence Against the Dark Arts spellbooks.

"A… research? On me?" she gasped, looking outraged. "Why?"

"You know the saying 'know your enemy', don't you? Well, the same applies to someone you fancy. Know them if you want to conquer their heart."

She raised her eyebrows in an amused sort of way. "You fancy me, Riddle?"

"It's Tom, and yes, I do fancy you, Adela."

"It's P…" before she could continue with 'rofessor Springfield', he pressed his index-finger to her lips.

"Shush, we aren't here to talk."

"On the contrary, Riddle, we're here to discuss your abysmal homework, for which you definitely don't deserve an A, only a D!" she replied defiantly.

"I love your temper, you know," he grinned.

"Don't grin at me like that!" she stamped her foot.

"Why not?"

"Because… because I'm a teacher and you're just an insolent little brat, Riddle!"

"Oh, am I?" he leaned closer to her again. "An insolent little brat who can make you lose your head with fury and tremble with desire?"

"D… desire?" she stammered as he leant as close as he could without making contact with her. She found herself mesmerised by those deep, velvety grey eyes and that immense knowledge she saw in them. How could a boy this young have eyes so full of intelligence, wisdom, yet pain and suffering? What had made this boy become so… so inexplicable? She thought she could reach out and touch him yet not _feel_ him, she could talk to him yet not understand him… she could see the pain in his eyes yet not know where it came from. 

What had this boy gone through? What had made him so cynical, so cold, so elusive, yet so… charismatic?

Riddle was the greatest riddle she had ever encountered in a person.

And, whether she liked to admit it or not, this enigmatic youngster attracted her like a magnet.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said finally.

"Don't you know it?" he slipped closer still, a new fire blazing in his eyes that gave him a sort of predatory look.

Professor Springfield sought to flee, backing away from him, only to trip over a chair she had forgotten having placed there. To her luck – or ill-fate – he caught her before she could hit the floor.

"I think you _do_ know it," he whispered, holding her tight. "Admit it, Adela."

However, Adela did not admit anything, just reached out and grabbed his head, pulling it down and losing herself into the kiss.

An hour later he was lying on his back, looking at the canopy of Professor Springfield's four-poster bed, absentmindedly caressing the red-gold tresses of the woman whose head was resting on his shoulder. She was in a deep slumber.

He didn't dare look at her, not when he felt so ashamed… actually he shouldn't have felt ashamed at all, given that his 'performance' wasn't even bad for a first time, still he felt he'd die of shame… and disgust. What was he thinking he was doing when flirting with this… this_… abomination_?

He rolled to his side, facing away from her. She moaned in her sleep, annoyed that her 'pillow' (Tom's shoulder) had moved out of reach.

He stared into the darkness of the room, his mind reeling.

_Why have I done this? _he asked himself, and all the answer he could get was _You're sixteen, for heaven's sake! It was time your hormones kicked in!_

_I know that!_ Tom's mind shouted. _I know I needed this release, but why… why with her of all people? Why not with a pureblood Slytherin girl of my own age? Why with a professor ten years older… why with a damned Mudblood?_

_Oh, boy, you cannot choose whom to fall in love with! _his mind answered.

_I'm not in love with her!_ Tom snapped.

_No? Then what made you go weak at the knee when you looked at her? What made you kiss her, hold her, pet her?_

_I DON'T KNOW!_ Tom's inner self howled. _I feel disgusted by the mere thought of caressing someone! Yuck. I didn't want this to happen!_

_Are you sure?_

_Yes, I am! This… this witch surely bewitched me!_

_Bewitch you, has she? I don't think so… it seemed as though YOU have bewitched her, not the other way around…_

_Why would I want to bewitch a filthy Mudblood? _Tom thought, irritated.

_Because this time it didn't matter that she was a Mudblood… all that mattered is that she's a woman, and a beautiful one at that… and you, young man, can be tough, cruel, or whatever you please, but a woman's charm is something that even you can't resist. Love is the mightiest force, Tom…_

_But I DON'T love her! I can't… love her… I can't love at all… especially her, this wretched little Mudblood!_

At this point the wretched little Mudblood flung her arm around Tom's midsection and nestled herself onto his back, making a searing sensation course through him from head to toe.

_To hell with the fact that she's a Mudblood!_ he thought and turned around with a sudden movement, pinning her beneath himself.

"A bit too demanding, aren't you, Tom?" she yawned, hoping to go back to sleep. But that night, she had no chance to rest.

* * * * *

"Where have you been, Tom?" Adela asked.

"None of your business," he grunted, dropping himself on her bed. They had been leading this forbidden relationship for months now and Tom was getting tired of it. He no longer felt an all-consuming desire for her – not when he could get her whenever he pleased. He was the type of person who always wanted more than he had. He no more understood how he could have wanted this woman so badly, how he could have had such animal cravings… he felt dirty, for he had given in to lowly desires; and even dirtier, for he had done it with a Mudblood. He felt he was covered in filth, and he could only wash himself clean with blood… He had felt a short-lived exhilaration when Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk managed to kill that pathetic little girl, yet it wasn't enough. He wanted, needed death… and this time he wouldn't be satisfied by sicking the serpent on someone… this time he wanted to do it, with his own hands… 

Sometimes, after an earth-shattering climax, he dreamed about throttling the woman sleeping peacefully and unsuspecting in his arms, but when he woke up, it always struck him: wouldn't it be unwise to kill a teacher? Couldn't the murder be traced back to him?

"You've been worrying me, Tom," Adela said, sitting down on the bed behind him, starting to massage his shoulders, clearly believing it to be a good method for relieving him of his tension. 

"Do not touch me," he growled.

With a sigh she stopped kneading him. "If you don't want me to touch you, then why have you come tonight?"

"Why, you are asking me?" he snapped, turning around to face her. "What have you greeted me with just a minute ago? _Where have you been, Tom?_ As though I had been up to something… as though you felt you had to keep an eye on me!" he shouted, but his next sentence was a mere whisper. A whisper with an accusatory undertone: "You don't trust me, Adela."

"But… but of course I trust you, Tom. I love you and I wouldn't love you if I didn't trust you…"

"Then why do you keep asking where I was when I'm a minute late? Why are you following me around like a puppy dog?"

"Just because…" her voice faltered. "Because… I'm worried about you."

"So, you were worried when that little girl got attacked, eh? Worried that I could also get attacked, or that _I_ was the one attacking her?"

"But… Tom! How… how can you assert such ridiculous things? You know I never in my life would suspect you of something as terrible as that!"

"Oh yeah?" he jumped up. "To me it pretty much seemed that you _were _suspecting me!"

"Of course I wasn't!" she hopped up, too, her face flushed with anger. "No one knows better than me how much you hate spending your summer holidays at the Muggle orphanage, and it's obvious that those attacks made sure that you'll have to go back there… certainly you wouldn't work against yourself, would you?"

"Right. I wouldn't," he nodded, not daring to look into her eyes. Her little monologue, though, had made him feel more ashamed than ever. Unconsciously she had 'accused' him of being stupid enough to work against himself… and if he thought it over, he had to admit that she was quite right. In his eagerness to fulfil Salazar Slytherin's noble plan of purging the school of the unworthy, he had made sure he'd be sent back to the oh-so-hated orphanage.

Still, she didn't have the right to even suppose that he was stupid. Stupid? Him? The last heir of the great Salazar Slytherin?!?

Again he felt like strangling this woman. How dare she? How dare she humble Lord Voldemort?

Yes… that was it… Tom, being bored and disgusted by his name (that no more sounded honey-sweet from Adela's mouth), had decided to fashion himself a new one. He had several times savoured 'lord', and had to admit that he liked the sound of it. He only needed to find a matching name, and since he had always fantasised about becoming immortal, he chose Voldemort, the French expression for 'flee from death'. Up till now he hadn't talked to anyone about this self-fabricated name, yet in thought he'd started calling himself Voldemort.

Lord Voldemort…

No lord was supposed to endure humiliation from a lesser person, especially a good-for-nothing Muggle-born!

"Why… why are you looking at me like that, Tom?" Adela gulped, horrified. His face was no more human, rather feral, his velvety grey eyes were bulging, and gleaming in a strange way, giving the impression of rather being red than grey… or had she just imagined it? She couldn't be sure, but she was sure that she really no longer could trust him. A man that loved you, would never look at you like that… with such hate, such… _what?_ Desire to kill?

"Get out of my room," she said very quietly, not daring to look at him any longer. After a minute of examining one particularly dirty spot on the floor, she heard the door bang shut. She looked up, heaving a sigh and wondering what she had just witnessed. He couldn't have been a Metamorphmagus, could he? Yet… if he wasn't one, then how could his usually benign, handsome features contort so radically, melding into the mask of a bloodthirsty werewolf about to pounce? What had got into her beloved Tom?

Blood… yes, that's it. He needed death, he needed to kill, to wash himself clean… He was craving to see someone die at his hands… He needed release, release from the thought of having dirtied himself in a Mublood's bed, release from the thought of having to go back to the orphanage, release from the always tantalising thought of _why _he had to live in that orphanage: because his father had never wanted him.

His wretched Muggle father who didn't deserve the love of his wonderful wife… who had left her when pregnant, left her to give birth alone and hadn't given a damn when she died in childbirth – if he had known it at all… Tom sometimes wondered whether his father had even heard of his wife's death…

It was all down to his pathetic father, it was all his fault! Had he not left his expectant wife, then perhaps she wouldn't have died, she would have been there to raise Tom, would have given him love and caring and he wouldn't have had to seek those in the person of Adela Springfield… oh, yes, Tom thought, he hadn't been _in love _with Adela, she had only filled the 'motherless' space in Tom's soul… but she had failed. 

A real mother wouldn't have humiliated him, would she? A real mother wouldn't have sent him away, would she? A real mother would have trusted him…

Seething, Tom reached the oak front door of the Hogwarts castle and opened it, hurrying out into the night.

A real mother would have understood him… he kept thinking. Adela was worthless, she couldn't be the mother Tom had always wished for, and she had become annoying as a lover as well. He had no need of a lover, what he desired she couldn't provide him with. No one could provide him with that… and it was all his damned father's fault.

Kill… kill… he had to kill to find release.

Before he even realised, he had reached the gate with the winged boars. From the other side of the gate he could easily Apparate – he was outside of the Hogwarts grounds, after all. Certainly, students of his age weren't supposed to be able to Apparate, but Tom had always thought that the rules were beneath him, and had learnt things in secret that he wasn't supposed to learn…

Walking past the boar-statues, his mind was reeling, he was practically hyperventilating, he barely saw his surroundings, his vision was fogged by some sort of madness, as though a veil had been tightly wound around his head – he was trapped inside of his head, his mind screaming at him: _Kill!,_ making it impossible for him to think of anything else…

Suddenly the veil lifted, his vision cleared and he perceived that he was standing in the garden of a huge, sinister-looking house. He remembered having seen it once before - he had been about nine years old when the principal of the orphanage had decided to arrange a bit of an excursion for the children. They had had a very cheerful picnic in the meadow below the hill on which this house stood. 

"Yeh know, tis the house of the Riddles. Me mum used ter work fer them as lon' as she lived. When she died, I got sent ter this stupid orphanage," one of the elder children had told Tom. "Yer name is also Riddle, isn't it, Tommy boy?"

Tom had only nodded.

"Well, yeh know, me mum said that this family's son married, but left his wife who was pregnant… nasty people, the whole damn Riddle family…"

_The whole damn Riddle family…_

Years later, when Tom turned eleven and received his Hogwarts letter, he got to know things he had never dreamed were possible. He got to know that his mother had been a witch who had been abandoned by her husband when she told him about her magic powers. It hadn't been hard for Tom to put two and two together: the husband abandoning his pregnant wife, the name Riddle… so now he _knew_ that this house was the residence of his so-called family… his so-called family, who had ruined his life, who had made him become so cold, so cynical, so devoid of true emotions… oh, what he would have given to be able to love… but no, he wasn't capable of it. No matter how much Adela had loved him, it wasn't enough to melt the ice that had so thickly frozen around his heart… He couldn't love her, not as a friend, not as a mother-substitute, not as a lover. 

His heart was dead, and he had been foolish to think that he had ever _loved_ her. He had mistaken the work of his teenage hormones for that inexplicable, beautiful thing called LOVE. That's something he'd never ever feel for anyone. He wished he could, but he knew he couldn't.

Although he was walking, breathing, talking, he barely felt alive, for his heart was dead, it had been dead all his life. Not even as a child could he feel real joy or love. The only emotion he was still capable of was hate. 

He hated everyone. 

He hated his father for having left his mother, he hated all Muggles because they – as he supposed – were all like his father, he hated his schoolmates who all had happy families, he hated his teachers who had an attitude of looking at him with great compassion, their eyes radiating _you poor, poor orphan_…

Tom felt like cursing all of them, he needed no one's compassion! Only the weak needed compassion, and Lord Voldemort certainly WASN'T WEAK.

His hate for all the living was strong enough to give him power, his hate spurred him on, to walk down the path to the Riddle house's front door, to open it with a flick of his wand and go looking for the owners of the house…

What happened after that was a blur for Tom – finding his father and grandparents in the drawing room, then – after a bit of shouting and mutual swearing – casting the Killing Curse on each of them…

After minutes of just looking dazedly at the older Riddles' bodies lying on the floor, their eyes wide open in shock, a silent scream frozen on their lips, Tom got shaken out of his trance-like-reverie by the creaking of a floorboard. It couldn't have been him, he had been standing there motionlessly, and surely his dead 'family' wasn't moving anymore…

He spun around, yelling _Immobilus!_ at whoever had made that noise.

"Adela?" he blinked, looking at his whore (he no more even considered her worthy of being called 'lover'), who was rooted to the spot by his charm, unable to move. However, he was sure that if she had been able to move, she would have been trembling from head to toe. The expression on her face at least suggested that.

"T…tom?" she breathed. The only body-part she could move was her mouth.

"How did you get here?" he asked, his voice unbelievably calm for someone who had just murdered three people.

She pressed her lips tightly together, her eyes radiating a determination not to answer him.

"All right, then," he shrugged. "_Legilimens!"_ he pointed his wand at her again.

In the next instant he was walking down the path of her memories and thoughts…

He saw her slipping some sort of a magical tracker into his robes when giving him a massage that evening… So, she had _really _not trusted him…

Then he saw…

_"No, Tom, my son, don't kill us!"_

_"Dear grandson, you… you wouldn't… wouldn't kill us? The only family you have?"_

_"Oh yes, the only family I have, thanks to your son! Had he not abandoned my mother, she wouldn't have died, and then my only family wouldn't be a bunch of filthy Muggles, three snivelling pieces of scum!"_

_"Tom… Tom, please… consider it…"_

_"I have LONG AGO considered it, FATHER. Avada Kedavra!"_

"So, you have seen it all," Tom said, stepping closer to the woman. "You know that this means I have to kill you, too?"

"No, Tom!" she whispered. "I… I can shut up about it… I won't tell anyone, I swear! Just… just cast the Obliviator Curse on me, and I'll forget all I've seen!"

"Yes…" he seemed contemplative for a moment, "I could do that… But it still does not change the fact that you don't trust me… you would continue being suspicious, you'd continue following me around as though I were not accountable…"

"Because you aren't," she replied. "You've just killed your father and grandparents in cold blood. Of course you're not accountable, you're mad, Tom. You need a psychiatrist… I'm sure that in St Mungo's the Healers would be able to help you… and you wouldn't be sent to Azkaban, since you're underage… They couldn't sentence you, but you'd get help! Tom, you definitely need it!"

"The only thing I need is to see you die…" he whispered. "And don't think I wouldn't have killed you long ago if it hadn't been suspicious: a teacher being murdered at Hogwarts… if my memory serves me well, no such thing has ever happened in the school's history… I've read _Hogwarts, a History_, you know… But now that you're away from school, I must seize the opportunity and silence you forever, my dear. People at Hogwarts wouldn't get to know, since it happened in a Muggle house, far away from the magical world… no one would ever be able to prove that it was little Tommy Riddle who had done it… They wouldn't be able to prove it, just as they will never be able to prove that _I_ killed Myrtle Myers… or what do they call her? Moaning Myrtle?" his mouth tucked into a devilish smirk that made Adela pale even more, her chalk white face in contrast with her red-gold hair that, in the semi-darkness of the room rather looked deep red.

"So… it was you, then," she muttered.

"Yes, my dear, you suspected me right," he reached out and cupped her chin. "You might be a good-for-nothing Mudblood, a disgrace to the name of witch, but your feelings haven't betrayed you. With your intelligence, Adela, you could have served Lord Voldemort well… had you been pureblooded, of course…"

"Lord… Lord What?" she gulped.

"Vol-de-mort. My new name. Like it? Of course I wouldn't keep my old one, what an abomination, being named after my Muggle father… from tonight on, little Tommy Riddle doesn't exist… there's Lord Voldemort instead."

"And what do you intend to do now, your lordship?" she asked in a sarcastic tone. "Take over the world? Kill all the Muggles?"

"Exactly as you say, Adela," he nodded, his eyes glinting with maniacal glee, and there were again seconds when they seemed rather red than grey. "But, before I start to conquer the world and gather followers to help my cause, I'll have to make sure that you keep your big mouth shut." At this point she started to quiver, despite the Immobilus Charm. "Unfortunately wiping your memories isn't safe enough… certain charms can retrieve them and you might be spilling the beans about things I'd rather you kept secret. So… you'll just have to take these secrets to the grave with you…"

"Don't kill me… Tom…"

"Don't you dare call me Tom again, I am Lord Voldemort!" he hissed, his nose nearly touching hers. For a moment they stared at each other, the air vibrating around them, between them…

She longed to reach out and touch his face, to caress him and tell him how much she loved him… loved him despite all he had done and was about to do…

She felt like chastising herself for being such an idiot – for loving a murderer, a clearly disturbed and dangerous person who was just about to kill her, too… yet she couldn't _not_ love him.

_I'm insane_, she told herself. Still, when she examined his cute, boyish features, when she looked into his eyes that used to darken with desire whenever he held her in his arms, when she looked at his lips that used to kiss her with such passion that she still shuddered at the memory, she simply _couldn't_ hate him. Especially because…

"Lord Voldemort," she whispered, "don't kill me, for I'm carrying your daughter."

*********************

**Note to Indigo Ziona, Myr Halcyon and Mistri:** see, you didn't even come close to finding out who the chap disgusted with himself was :) But your tries were nice and enjoyable. I hope to see you take part in more fic challenges in the future! :D

**General note**: for update notes of each chapter, please join my yahoo group (see link in my bio).


	2. The Daughter's Sacrifice

**Author's note in April, 2005:** this chapter, as many others in many of my fics has been reuploaded since it had lyrics in it that I had to delete (and I didn't trust ffnet's quick-edit).

**Chapter 2**

The daughter's sacrifice

_March, 1980, a room above the Hog's Head inn_

"Well, Miss Trelawney, I'm here," said Albus Dumbledore, taking a place at the table, facing a middle-aged woman, who was heavily draped in various lilac shawls, clearly trying to give herself a mysterious look. However, with her enormous spectacles, Albus rather got the impression that she looked like some huge dragonfly.

"Thank you for devoting some of your precious time to me, Headmaster," the woman replied in a singsong voice. "I highly appreciate the opportunity for this little chat and hope that you'll find me most suitable for the job."

"I hope the same," he said with a benign smile, though in fact he didn't want to find a new teacher at all - Hogwarts could do without Divination, couldn't it?

"I can assure you, Headmaster, that the talents for Seeing run in my family. Perhaps you have heard of my great-great-grandmother, Cassandra Trelawney?"

"Of course I have." Albus nodded. "She was the greatest Seer of the 19th century, and if you possess no more than a tenth of her talents, then I'm sure you'll turn out to be a wonderful Divination professor."

"I'm sure I'll manage to fulfil your requirements, Headmaster."

"All right, then, Miss Trelawney, if you don't mind, I would like to test you a bit, just to see your skills in fortune-telling."

Sybill shifted nervously, but nodded. "Certainly."

Dumbledore reached out with his left hand towards her.

"I'd gladly see some Palmistry from you, Miss Trelawney."

"Er… of course," she said and took his hand. "Well, your life line is very long, Headmaster. However, it seems to me that you are going to have a very nasty incident with a goat…"

"Are you sure, Miss Trelawney?" He raised his silvery eyebrows.

"Absolutely." Sybill nodded eagerly. "Also, if I'm not mistaken, you are going to fall in love with a certain Undersecretary to the Minister in about sixteen years. Her name is…" she pulled his hand closer to her eyes as though trying to decipher the name. "Dolly Bambridge, yes…"

"How interesting." Albus's mouth twitched. "What about a bit of Crystal-gazing?"

"I would gladly, of course," she replied reluctantly, "the only problem is that I haven't brought a crystal orb."

"Not to worry, here's one for you." Dumbledore beamed at her and conjured an orb out of thin air.

Sybill seemed a bit miffed, but placed the crystal in front of herself and peered into it.

"Well… I see Hogwarts under siege… a herd of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks will attack it next May and eat all the plants save the Whomping Willow in the Hogwarts parks…"

"I see." Albus nodded. "Well, I think this is enough, Miss Trelawney. Just to inform you, the goat incident belongs to the past, not to the future. Also, there is a Junior Assistant to the Minister called Dolores Umbridge in the Ministry, I fear you have misread her name from my palm, not to mention that she's way too short and toad-faced for my taste. As for the Snorkacks, they are reputedly carnivorous, not herbivorous."

"Oh…" Sybill blinked, blushing. "Then I take the job interview is over?"

"Yes, Miss Trelawney, it is," said Dumbledore, standing up, ready to leave the room. He made to the door. Had he opened it then, an eavesdropper would have fallen through it. "I'm extremely sorry about not being able to offer you the job…"

However, before Albus could put his hand on the handle, the woman behind him started to speak in a low but determined voice so different from her usual one.

_"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him… born as the seventh month dies…"_

"What do you think you're doing?" came the voice of the bartender from outside, then an 'ouch' could be heard and hasty steps down the stairs. Albus knew at once that the bartender had caught an eavesdropper and must have thrown him out.

Trelawney, still looking sort of petrified, didn't seem to have noticed the commotion outside. She carried on:

_"…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"_

Suddenly she shuddered, as though waking from a trance, and looked around in a surprised way.

"Where am I? Oh, it's you, Dumbledore… I'm sorry that I don't fulfil your requirements," she said in a clearly hurt voice. "So I think I might as well go…"

"Wait!" Albus said to the witch who had already stood up to leave. "You've got the job, Miss Trelawney. Welcome in the Hogwarts staff."

She gave him a quizzical stare, then nodded. "Thank you, Headmaster, I was sure you'd eventually find my Seer talents satisfactory. And you know, the Snorkacks I was talking about were mutant, that's why they ate grass."

"Certainly, Sybill," Dumbledore said politely, "if you don't mind me calling you Sybill. We're colleagues now, so feel free to call me Albus."

"All right, Albus. When can I start?"

"I'd be delighted if you could start tomorrow," said Dumbledore. He knew he had to give Sybill accommodation at Hogwarts as soon as possible, Hogwarts being the only place where the Dark Lord couldn't get to her. For Albus - knowing that someone had overheard part of the prophecy and believing the eavesdropper to be one of the Dark Lord's followers - was pretty sure that Voldemort would be eager to hear it fully. Trelawney had to be kept safe at the school, because Voldemort mustn't know the whole prediction… "We lost our previous Divination teacher a week ago."

"Oh, died of age?"

"No, her crystal ball exploded on her, a rather nasty joke of Peeves', I must say…"

Trelawney shrugged, unaware who Peeves was, and unaware that she had just given the first real prediction of her life.

* * *

"My Master," the cloaked figure said, bowing.

"What is it?" growled Lord Voldemort, idly fondling a rattlesnake in his lap.

"My lord, I have just overheard something that you must know."

"Then out with it!"

"Yes, my lord. So, I was following Dumbledore as you had ordered, and he went into the Hog's Head, that very dirty little pub in Hogsmeade… he met some woman who was applying for the vacant job of the Divination professor. He made her predict all sorts of things, that, to tell you the truth, sounded totally ridiculous. Then suddenly she must have gone into some kind of trance, at least I think so, I never saw her - and a very peculiar prophecy left her mouth. A prophecy concerning you, my lord."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Voldemort raised his voice. "Tell me the prophecy!"

"To… to tell you the truth, Master, I only… only heard part of it, because… because Silly Sam, the landlord caught me eavesdropping…" replied the cloaked figure, trembling.

Voldemort rolled his eyes. "One can't trust you with anything, you fool!"

"I'm sorry, my lord!" squeaked the other one.

"Then tell me what you have heard," said the Dark Lord gruffly.

The small figure hesitated a bit, trying to remember the exact wording. "Er… it said that the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him… born as the seventh month dies."

For a minute Voldemort silently caressed his snake's head, contemplating the words.

"So, a child will be born soon. A child who will have the power to kill me? Hmm… to parents who have defied me three times… there were lots of wizard couples that defied me once, twice, even thrice, but… they're dead. Or are there exceptions?"

The cloaked figure shifted uneasily.

"It seems to me that you know something… and yet you don't want to reveal it… _Imperio!_"

"I know of two married couples, my lord, two couples, who are expecting baby boys during the summer…" came the forced answer. "One of them is Alice and Frank Longbottom."

"The Aurors, eh?" The Dark Lord scratched his jaw. "If I think it over, it is possible that they have defied me three times… yes, I think they have. And the others?"

"The others…" came a shaky answer.

"Well?"

The cloaked figure was trembling, as though willing himself not to speak.

"Why do I get the impression that you're still hiding something from me, Wormtail? Something that you so desperately want to keep a secret that you're trying to overcome my Imperius Curse?" The Dark Lord pointed his wand at his servant again. "_Crucio_!"

Peter Pettigrew fell and started writhing on the cold tile floor, howling in pain. "The Potters! It's the Potters!" he screamed between two spasms.

"Good." Lord Voldemort lifted his wand and broke the contact. "See, you can behave sensibly, Wormtail, if you want to."

"Y…yes, my lord," Pettigrew groaned, slowly sitting up.

"So, the Longbottoms and the Potters expect children who may overthrow me… A tiny little child having powers to do me in? Hm… _a tiny little child_…" A dreamy expression fell over Voldemort's snakelike face. "This gives me a rather peculiar idea, Wormtail…"

* * *

_21st May 2004, Malfoy Manor_

Virginia Malfoy gazed out onto the flower-littered meadows surrounding Malfoy Manor. It was a warm May day, bright, sunny, and friendly. Birds were circling in the air, chirping happily, and sunshine came through the window into Ginny's room, painting the walls with its golden-yellow beams.

It was a magically beautiful, hot day, but all Ginny felt was coldness.

She was sitting on the windowsill, resting her right hand on her bulging belly. A little life in there kicked, as if sensing its mother's gentle caress, responding to her, 'I'm here, Mummy!' Ginny answered with a new caress, reassuring her baby of her love. She diverted her stare from the park and looked at her hand stroking her abdomen.

Her face tucked into a grimace at the irony of life: here she was, wearing a diamond ring that had once belonged to Narcissa and to Lucius's mother before her - a Malfoy family heirloom - the diamond glinting on the hand with which she was caressing a child that was _not_ a Malfoy.

Every pregnant woman would have been happy to feel her baby move, signalling that it was getting bored inside and was impatient to get to know the world at last, but Ginny didn't feel happy about the impending birth. She felt scared. Scared to death…

In her dreams she used to hold a tiny bundle with small hands reaching out of it towards her, but whenever she tried to have a look at the face of the little being in the bundle, she woke up. She never got to see the child's features, nor its hair-colour… red or black?

In the last two weeks every morning she woke up, the first thought that came to her mind was: would it happen today? Would her baby arrive today, or did she have another day or two to keep it safe?… for she wished she could keep the little one inside her forever, to protect it from the cruelty of the outside world.

Her heart ached for her baby, making a hot stream of tears course down her cheeks. Other children in other families were so happily and excitedly awaited, but this child of hers was not awaited - maybe it would be better for it not to be born at all, for once it was born and turned out to take after its father, it would be right away sentenced to death. It was like the sword of Damocles hanging above Ginny's belly, waiting to fall down and crush the child...

Ginny looked out onto the grounds again, heaving a deep sigh. She was trapped inside on a magical day like this, with nothing but her fear as companion. Surely her husband wouldn't mind if she just opened the window a bit to let the sweet smell of flowers in?

She reached out to grab the handle, but as she turned it and the window opened, not only a honey-scented gust of wind hit her, but some terrible pain as well. The first contraction.

It had begun…

_August, 2003_

"I'm leaving," Draco growled at his wife. "Don't expect me home for a while, I might not return for weeks... or months."

"Don't worry, I won't be _expecting_ you home," she snapped and dropped herself into a cushioned armchair. "Have fun with your whores, or whoever you'll be fooling around with."

"Jealous, aren't we?" Draco gave her a mocking grin.

"Jealous? No way, dear," Ginny emphasised the 'dear' in a derisive tone. "Jealousy is something that one feels when one is in love. I'm not in love with you and have never been, as you know."

"No surprise here," he said, shrugging. "Though I never managed to understand why you haven't fallen in love with me yet... I'm not that terrible-looking, am I? I'm not disgusting either, am I? Then why, Ginny? Why can't you love me?"

"How... how could you expect me to love you after all you did to me... to my family? After your damned father kidnapped mine, tortured him and compelled me to marry you in exchange for his freedom? How could I love a heartless beast like you?"

"Remember, Ginny... it was not me but my father who kidnapped Arthur Weasley, on the orders of the Dark Lord. You know... the Dark Lord didn't really like your father arranging all those anti-Voldemort-movements throughout Great Britain..."

Lucius Malfoy had managed to talk himself out of Azkaban, convincing that idiot Fudge that he had also been misled by the Death Eaters and had been accidentally present in the Department of Mysteries when the Death Eaters wanted to steal the prophecy. And Fudge, being Fudge, was more than willing to believe him.

"Your father had a finger in every pie, Virginia, so the Dark Lord just had to get rid of him and Father helped his lord with task. Then of course your little sweetheart made him flee again... but Arthur was still in my father's possession, and he wanted to take revenge on him... to hurt him as much as possible..."

"...and the best way he could hurt Dad was to throw me into _your_ arms." Ginny scowled. "I'll never, you hear me, _never_ forget my father's expression when I saw him at St. Mungo's after your torturing! That paleness, those scars and black-blue marks on every inch of his body... you made a wreck of him!"

"He has healed, hasn't he?" Draco crossed his arms.

"Physically, yes. But mentally - no. He is still broken, and not by your torturing, but by the fact that he knows I'm so unhappy, living with a Malfoy! That was your aim, after all, wasn't it? To let poor Arthur Weasley know that a Malfoy was ruling over his only daughter, making every second of her life miserable!"

"That was my father's aim, yes. But not mine, dear Virginia." He bent down to lift up her chin. "I loved you. Already, at school. You were the prettiest girl at Hogwarts... the most desirable one, with your flaming hair, looking like an untameable wildcat... the only problem was that you happened to be Potter's girlfriend."

"You must be very proud of yourself for having separated me from him." Ginny's eyes narrowed. "What a great achievement."

"Exactly, darling," Draco laughed. "I was proud of myself for having taken you from him... and I was even more pleased to get to know that he had left you innocent..."

"You disgusting bastard!" She sprang up from her armchair. "You enjoyed it so much, eh?"

"I did... at first." He screwed up his face. "But you were no fun, dear. You're as frigid as an icicle, I feel like freezing whenever I touch you."

"Then don't touch me, it's so simple," she snapped.

"Don't worry, I won't be touching you for a while... I'll be touching someone else... someone else who responds, not just lies there like a dead fish. Someone who can still arouse me... someone who can give me what you cannot: an heir."

She lifted her head to look directly into his eyes. "So that's why you have been spending so much time away lately. You've been sleeping around, trying to get any witch pregnant... and what do you expect of me if you succeed in fathering a child? Will you finally consent to divorce me and marry its mother?"

"You know that I will never consent to divorce you," he replied coldly. "You are so much like my mother, Virginia: beautiful, cold and a nice dummy I can bring to any social event. A Malfoy never gets divorced, haven't I told you a thousand times? Getting divorced is something that would ruin the family's reputation and I won't let that happen. Never."

"Then how...? What will you do with an illegitimate child of yours?"

"Bring it here and make you raise it," he replied nonchalantly, as if it had been something natural. "As though you had been its mother."

"You expect me to raise the child of another woman?" she yelled, her eyes sending fire-bolts at her husband.

"If you can't give me an heir, then someone else will!"

"I'm not raising a little bastard!" She stamped her foot angrily.

"Yes, you will, you barren bitch!" He raised a hand.

"Hit me! What are you waiting for? Go ahead, hit me!" she hissed.

Draco, however, stepped back and re-adjusted his robes. "No. A Mrs. Malfoy can't have a black-eye, or people would start gossiping that our marriage isn't... _perfect_."

With that he turned on his heels and left the room.

Ginny sank back into the cushioned chair, feeling totally frustrated. Fury was building up in her, threatening to burst out with a loud explosion... a beautiful Chinese vase was standing on the little circular table next to her chair, and it mysteriously found its way through the closed window.

A scared house-elf ran into the room. "What happened, mistress?"

"Nothing, Blinky," Ginny replied. "I'm all right. I haven't felt this good for weeks."

"But the window..." The elf pointed at the broken pane and the slivers of glass scattered on the Persian carpet.

"_Reparo_." Ginny flicked her wand at the splinters, then stood up. "I'm leaving, Blinky. Should anyone be looking for me, I'll be at the Burrow, visiting my family. My _real_ family."

* * *

Ginny grabbed her suitcase and walked out to the gate of Malfoy Manor where she took the Knight Bus to the Burrow. The old house of her parents looked the same way it had a decade earlier - sometimes even Ginny wondered how this ramshackle building could stay in one piece.

Just like in her childhood, chickens and gnomes were running up and down in the garden that was still filled with all sorts of weeds imaginable.

Ginny entered the house with a sigh - it seemed to have been a lifetime ago when she had been living here, although only five years had passed. Yet, she felt as if she had lived within the confines of Malfoy Manor all her life. The memories awoken by the Burrow felt like coming from another life, they were nothing but hazy pictures she could no more properly recall... pictures of a happy life.

"Ginny!" Her mother clasped her hands and ran up to her to give her a mother-bear-like hug. Although she felt a bit sore after Molly's way-too-enthusiastic embrace, Ginny was still grateful for it. She was at home, and for the duration of her visit she decided to push all the negative thoughts and sappy nostalgic emotions into the back of her mind. She was here to enjoy a bit of time with her parents, not to brood over old days long gone.

"Is Dad at the Ministry?" she asked Molly, sitting down at the kitchen table.

"Yes, dear. Overworking, as usual."

"Overworking... to forget? To take his mind off my misery?" Ginny asked sourly, knowing how much her marriage had shaken her father - no one in the family was as shaken as Arthur, maybe because of the torturing he had gone through. Although five years had passed, he still hadn't healed totally - his heart was broken.

"No, dear, he has a lot to do with a new Muggle Protection Act he's going to introduce soon," Molly smiled nervously and placed a plate full of cookies in front of her daughter. However, Ginny wasn't fooled.

"I know you are telling me this so that I won't worry, Mum, but please, stop lying. I can see through all sorts of lies. I've been living with a Malfoy, after all, and at his side I had to learn to notice when someone isn't telling the truth."

Mrs. Weasley heaved a deep sigh. "How is he treating you?"

"Draco? Just the usual... but there's good news: he's gone for weeks or even months, so I'm a bit free at last."

"Then... you could move back here, at least for a week... I would be so happy to have my only daughter here again!"

"Thanks, Mum." Ginny smiled and took a cookie.

* * *

It felt wonderful for Ginny to be at _home_ again, eat dinner with her parents and the twins, laugh at jokes... she didn't remember when she had laughed last.

Fred and George were the only Weasley 'children', who hadn't got married or moved out yet. They kept exploding things in the house, working on new Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products, but Molly never scolded them for making such a racket. Not anymore. She was thankful enough to hear some noise at all, because most of the day, when her husband and the twins were at work, she felt like drowning in the silence. Sometimes she caught herself talking to the thin air or to the gnomes in the garden.

Empty nest - that's what the Burrow was. All her young had flown out - Bill settled down in Egypt and married an Egyptian witch, Charlie was still a bachelor, but spent most of his time in Romania, Percy had married Penelope and lived in the Clearwater family's house in London, and Ron... Ron had moved to live with Hermione, although they were not married. Molly had found this scandalous and scolded her youngest son for his 'unholy' relationship, but after the telling-off Arthur reminded her that she should be grateful that Ron was happy at least. _"Just think of Ginny... she lives in the holy bind of matrimony, but she's still unhappy"._ Ron and Hermione were living in a tiny flat that barely provided any comfort, but, as Arthur had said: "_Think of Ginny. She lives in that luxurious big house with dozens of servants, but she's still unhappy."_ Ron had told his parents that he and Hermione had agreed not to marry for a while unless she got pregnant - which was quite out of the question with all those birth-control spells she knew. As Arthur always said: _"Think of Ginny. She couldn't have a child, even if she wanted."_

Every time Molly felt like reprimanding Ron again and beseech him to legalise his relationship with Hermione, Arthur's words came to her mind and she thought better of giving her youngest son another telling-off. Not that he didn't deserve it...

But tonight that Ginny was with them again, chatting, giggling and teasing the twins, Molly didn't want to fume about Ron's behaviour. She had her baby daughter back, and that was all that counted.

"So, when are you getting divorced from that dung-eater at last?" George turned to his sister over dinner.

"You know that I can't get divorced, George," Ginny replied.

"Why not?" Fred asked.

"I just can't," she sighed. She didn't dare tell her family the truth: that Draco's father had used some very nasty sort of Dark Art called 'The Fates Charm' on Arthur when he had been held at the dungeon of Malfoy Manor. The Fates Charm was invented in the ancient Greece; if a wizard takes a hair from the head of another and puts this spell on it, then he can actually hold the life of the other in his hand. If he cuts the hair, just likes The Fates in the ancient Greek mythology cut the thread symbolising a person's life, then the person dies. Draco hid the hair from his wife, so that he could keep blackmailing her; as long as she was willing to live together with him, Arthur would live.

Ginny shuddered every time she thought of this cruel charm - the charm that kept her chained to the man she did not love. The charm that deterred her from taking divorce proceedings... the charm that she had to keep a secret.

* * *

That night when Ginny entered her old room, she was surprised to see the book she had been reading before she left, still lying on her bedside table; it was a Muggle book called _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_. She used to love that book, and strangely she had always imagined Ford Prefect as Percy, the Prefect. As for Arthur Dent... she couldn't help imagining him a bit like Harry.

_Harry..._

Five years had passed since she last saw him - he had disappeared after she got married to Draco. The news that Ginny married to a Malfoy, when she was supposed to be in love with Harry, was the worst cold shower the young wizard could get.

It happened the very day of Harry's latest battle with Voldemort; exhausted, dirty and longing to hold Ginny in his arms, Harry Apparated to the Burrow, just to get the greatest shock of his life: there she was, in Draco's arms, Draco kissing her, Lucius Malfoy clapping and a wizard priest congratulating the new couple. Harry didn't even notice how pale all the Weasleys were, didn't even realise that Arthur wasn't present - all he saw was his one and only love in his archenemy's arms...

...and Ginny never had a chance to explain it to him, for he was gone. She didn't know whether she'd ever see him again. She sent him dozens of owls behind her husband's back, but never got an answer. Ron and Hermione also wrote to Harry, telling him about the forced marriage, but their friend never reacted to any of their letters.

* * *

Right after the wedding the news of Voldemort's so-called defeat reached Lucius' ears and he fled. Aurors raided Malfoy Manor and found the tortured and sick Mr. Weasley in the dungeons. The Weasleys wanted to go to the wizarding court to have the marriage annulled, saying that it was carried out under compulsion and not of the bride's own free will, but Draco had the hair and ordered Ginny to persuade her family not to resort to the law. So, Ginny pretended to love Draco. At first it worked, but later on she couldn't hide her true emotions from her family. They kept asking her why she hadn't got divorced, but she refused to tell - she could not to tell them about The Fates Charm.

To the Weasleys' disappointment, Draco couldn't be proven to have been helping his father with the Death Eater business, so he never got sent to prison. Lucius was killed by Mad-Eye Moody not long after he fled, and Narcissa had died months before him.

So, Draco, the last of the Malfoys, was considered an honourable nobleman by the Ministry - a nobleman who was unfortunate enough to have had a criminal for a father.

* * *

When Ginny slipped under the covers that night, for a minute she felt like that young girl who had once lived and daydreamed here. She pulled her stuffed Kneazle into her arms as the door opened and her mother entered.

Molly sat down on the edge of her bed and started stroking Ginny's hair, like she had done in her childhood.

"Are you also going to tell me a fairy tale, Mummy?" Ginny asked with an impish grin.

"If you'd like me to... what would you like to hear?"

Ginny smiled. "Just tell me, Mum... how come that nothing's changed in this room since I left? When I entered it today, I felt as though it was just yesterday I was last here... even my favourite book was in the same place I left it five years ago."

"I wanted to leave your room exactly the way it used to be, dear. And whenever I come into this room - and I come every day - I feel a bit as if you were still here with us."

"Mum..." Ginny gave Molly's hand a squeeze.

"It's so... so good to have you back!" Her mother sniffed and gathered her into a firm embrace.

"Don't cry, Mum, please."

Molly let go of her and looked directly into her eyes. "Why, Ginny? Why can't you just leave that horrible man? You don't love him, so why?"

"I'm sleepy, Mum," the young woman replied, though she knew it was no proper reply.

Reluctantly, Molly left the room and Ginny was alone with her thoughts again.

* * *

Next morning she woke up early - it was only seven o'clock, and she decided to be the old Ginny for a change… the old Ginny, who used to go downstairs to nick some pre-breakfast food without getting dressed properly. So, she headed downstairs - in her nightgown, her hair tousled, barefoot.

She had reached halfway down the stairs when voices caught her ear.

"Are you sure about this, little brother?" It was Fred.

"One hundred percent," Ron's voice replied. "Luna Lovegood saw him in an Apothecary's yesterday."

"But… is it sure that she saw… Harry?"

"Yeah. He's back."


	3. Phaedra

**Author's note in April, 2005:** this chapter, as many others in many of my fics has been reuploaded since it had lyrics in it that I had to delete (and I didn't trust ffnet's quick-edit). You can read the original version of the chapter in my yahoogroup, or on schnoogle. 

**Chapter 3 **

Phaedra

"Are you sure?" Fred's voice sounded sceptical. "Do you think it's wise to rely on the words of _Luna Lovegood?_ What if it was just one of her usual delusions? Perhaps she saw a Crumple-Horned Snorkack and mistook it for Harry?"

"Oh, come on, Luna's weird, but not a lunatic," Ron's voice replied irritably.

"Lunatic Luna," sniggered George. "Okay, let's presume that our friend Harry is really back. Then there's only one question left…"

"Where has he been?" Ron guessed.

"No, when to arrange a huge Welcome-Back-Harry-Party for him," George replied eagerly.

"I don't think he'd appreciate it," Ron said seriously. "Luna said he looked quite sullen when she saw him… sad and reticent. Apparently he barely returned her greeting, just nodded and left with some Doxycide."

Ginny, who had been listening to the conversation on the staircase, had to slap her hands over her mouth not to shout, 'I know where he is right now, then!'

Of course she knew it; where else would Harry need Doxycide than at number 12 Grimmauld Place? Sirius had left the house to his godson in his will, but Ginny suspected that Harry hadn't even entered that house since Sirius' death…

Her heart was throbbing so loudly that she wondered how her brothers hadn't noticed her eavesdropping yet. Suddenly she felt a hand on her arm, turned around and saw her mother.

"Come, dear," Molly whispered, "let's go back to your room, shall we?"

Ginny nodded, not knowing how much her mother had heard of the boys' conversation, but having quite a good idea what she'd want to talk to her about.

"I know what you feel now," Molly said quietly, closing Ginny's door behind them.

"No, you don't." Her daughter shook her head.

"Ginny." Molly guided her to the bed and sat down next to her, putting an arm around her. "Don't lie to me. I see it in your eyes."

"What do you see there?" she asked, trying to smile, but not really managing to.

"Pain. Confusion. Exhilaration. And most clearly of all: love."

"Love?" Ginny pursed her lips. "I don't think so. I'm… I'm not in love with him, Mum. Not anymore… I… I love my husband. Really."

Molly tutted disapprovingly. "This is something that none of you - not you, not any of your brothers - have managed to learn yet; you can _never_ lie to your mother. I know you better than anyone else, and I see what I see. You still love Harry Potter, just as much as you loved him back at school."

Ginny looked at her mother and heaved a deep sigh.

"It's scary Mum that you know me better than I know myself… because you seem to know what I feel, when _I_ don't know what I feel. My feelings are so confused, I don't understand them… I don't know what to think, what to believe… I no longer know anything, Mum… but there's one single thing that I do know… I've got to talk to him."

"Do so," Molly said gently and Ginny gave her a surprised stare. She had expected her mother to try and dissuade her… but she rather encouraged her. "I expect you have an idea where to look for him."

"Oh, yes, I do, Mum." Ginny smiled. "But I think the boys might have a good idea about it, too… and I wouldn't be too happy if they turned up there and…"

"…disturbed you." Molly nodded knowingly. "Don't worry, dear, I'll keep them from going there, even if I have to cast _Petrificus Totalus_ on all of them."

"I love you, Mum." Ginny sneaked her arms around Molly's neck with a grateful smile. "You're wonderful."

"What else are mothers good for?" Molly winked at her daughter.

* * *

An hour later Ginny reached numbers 11 and 13 of Grimmauld Place. As she approached them, a third building appeared between the two others and some worn stone steps leading up to a shabby black door appeared. 

She opened the door and stepped inside. The hall of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black was dark and gloomy, cobwebs hanging everywhere. It was in a worse condition than years earlier when the Order of the Phoenix had moved in. At those times Kreacher had at least removed some of the cobwebs, but now the elf had been dead for a while (Ginny couldn't help but feel relieved about it) and the Order of the Phoenix no longer used this building as its headquarters.

As she walked down the corridors, dirt rose from the floor in small puffs. In the all-covering dirt a pair of footsteps were easily noticeable in the light of Ginny's wand.

Harry's footsteps.

Her heart started to beat quicker as she neared the door under which a thin streak of light could be seen.

Before she reached the door, she heard some strange noise coming from one of the paintings on the wall to the left. She raised her wand and almost dropped it when a fit of silent laughter came over her; what she saw in the painting was Sirius Black's charming mother whose lips were mysteriously stuck together, preventing her from cursing as usual. All she could produce was a 'Mmmmppphhh!' Had Harry silenced her when no one had managed to do so before? - Ginny wondered and stepped to the door.

She was just about the grab the handle when it flung open, as though operated by remote control.

"Why am I not surprised to see you here, Mrs Malfoy?" A cold voice spoke up from an armchair facing away from the door.

"Perhaps because you can't even see me," Ginny replied, wondering how Harry could know that she had arrived.

"I can see you, Mrs Malfoy," said the man in the armchair.

_He doesn't sound too happy to have me here_, she thought, then braced herself and walked up to the fireplace by which two armchairs were standing, one of them occupied by Harry.

She flopped down into the vacant one and looked at him. The first thing that struck her was that he had a very nice tan, and that he was scowling at her. Trying to ignore his scowl, she spoke up, "You don't seem to have a magical eye like Moody. How can you see through the door and the back of your chair, then?"

"There are other ways. But I'm sure you haven't come to discuss my special vision," he replied coolly, which gave Ginny an even stronger feeling of being unwelcome at Harry's house.

"Right." She nodded, gazing into the fire. "I've come here for something else."

"I'm all ears." He slipped down a bit in his armchair, as if readying himself for an amusing tale.

"I've come to _talk_ to you," Ginny replied in a determined tone.

"Talk, then. I'm listening." He shrugged.

She shook her head. "I've come here for a conversation and that requires at least two people."

"Does it?" He sat up properly, giving her a challenging stare. "Let's have a conversation, then, Mrs Malfoy."

"Please, Harry, don't call me that."

"Why not? Isn't it your name?" He cocked his head innocently, but his eyes radiated defiance.

"Yeah, but…" her voice faltered. The defiant expression on his face riled her, as though he were deliberately teasing her… "Can't you be a bit nicer to me after meeting me after five whole years?"

"Nicer?" He raised an eyebrow. "Certainly, madam. Do you wish to drink a cup of tea?"

"You know this wasn't what I meant." She furrowed her brow.

"Of course I know." He leant slightly forward to look directly into her eyes. "I just felt like taunting you, like I've done with all the Malfoys. Malfoy-irritating is a great pastime."

However, when Ginny looked into his emerald eyes, she saw no trace of fun in them. All she saw there was pain.

"What happened to you, Harry?" she whispered. "You've changed."

"How perceptive." He slumped back into the armchair, clearly annoyed. "You've always been this perceptive, Ginny…"

"Because you've always been this bad at hiding your emotions," she countered.

"And what do you think I'm trying to hide now?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Grief," she said quietly.

"Well spotted. And now, if you don't mind, I'd like to remain alone with my grief. That's why I've come back, after all…"

"_Why_ have you come back?"

"I've just said it, haven't I? To be far from everyone who wants to annoy me."

"And what could be a more perfect place for wallowing in your grief than this house, eh?" she replied sharply, irritated by his cocky answers.

"You know _nothing_ of what has happened to me," he hissed. "If you only knew, you wouldn't say I'm _wallowing_ in grief."

"Then tell me so that I know." She folded her arms.

However, he remained silent, his lips pressed tightly together. Now it struck Ginny how much he had aged; although there were no wrinkles on his face or grey hairs among his raven-black locks, he still seemed much older… as though not only five years had passed since they had last met, but at least fifteen… he was a grown man now, and a serious and strict-looking one at that. She wondered what he had gone through to change this radically… she wondered whether her marriage to Draco had also contributed to Harry's change…

"Tell me," she whispered.

"I'd rather _you_ told me why you married Malfoy," he countered.

Ginny paled.

"If you had been so terribly in love with him, you could have told me, I would have understood. But the way I got to know… it made it unforgivable."

"If you only knew how it really happened, you'd forgive me."

"Then tell me so that I know," he replied.

"Draco made me," Ginny said simply. "I didn't want to… I was forced."

"Forced?" He arched an eyebrow at her. "How, if I may ask?"

"No, you may not." She pursed her lips, knowing that she had already told more than she should have.

"Right, then I don't believe you." He shrugged and wiped his forehead - it was pretty hot next to the fireplace.

Ginny gasped.

"Your scar!"

"Oh, that." He waved.

"It's gone!"

"Isn't, just concealed."

"Why?" She frowned.

"Why not?" he asked back.

"You had a reason for it, I'm sure… but you don't want to tell me."

"You're exceptionally perceptive today," he grunted.

"Okay, then, if you don't want to tell me, at least tell me where you have been all these years and what you have been doing, why you haven't answered any of our owls…"

"Where have I been? Almost everywhere. What have I been doing? Almost everything. Why haven't I answered your letters? Because I didn't read them. I wasn't interested in what any of you had to say… I felt betrayed, Ginny and I didn't want to hear your pathetic apologies." He squinted at Ginny, and seeing a miffed expression spread on her face, he allowed himself a smirk. "A vague answer as a payment for the vague answer you gave me."

"Are you playing payback time with me, Harry?" She scowled at him.

"I am. And I always pay back everything in the same manner I got them. An eye for an eye, you know the saying?"

"You scare me, Harry."

"Don't worry, you're not alone with this feeling. Lots of people have found me scary." He stood up and started pacing the room. "And to tell you the truth, sometimes I scare myself, too."

"The truth…" she sighed. "Do you remember those times when we always told each other the truth about everything?"

"Barely," he said in a gruff voice. "It happened way too long ago."

"_I_ haven't forgotten it yet," she emphasised.

"Good for you. That means you haven't had as much on your mind as I have." He stopped in his stride and turned to face her. "Not much to do as a Mrs Malfoy, I presume? What has your life consisted of, Ginny? Parties? Charity events? Buying robes after the latest Parisian fashion? Bringing up fair-haired feisty little brats?"

At this moment Ginny's eyes flared up with anger.

"Have I touched a delicate point or what?" He gave her an amused look.

Slowly she rose to her feet, her hands balled into fists.

"I can't have any children, Harry," she growled through gritted teeth.

"Good for you," he replied.

"Good?" she snapped. "It's the worst thing imaginable!"

"There are worse things," he responded, looking very serious. "There are worse things than not being able to _bear_ children, believe me."

"How could you know it?" she hissed, tears brimming her eyes. "You're a male, for heaven's sake! You'll never know what it feels like to want a child so badly you're almost going mad…"

"It's you who doesn't know anything, Ginny." He shook his head sullenly. "But if your greatest desire is to raise a child, you can adopt one. The orphanages are full of kids thirsting for love, love that their own parents would never have given them… or are you insisting on having little Pureblood Malfoys?"

"I wouldn't insist, but Draco…" She looked away, wiping tears off her face. "He wants a child of his own… and if I can't give it to him, he'll get it elsewhere."

"Oh…" Harry dropped himself into one of the armchairs. "Why am I not surprised by this? Malfoy used to sleep around already at Hogwarts."

"Really? I never knew." She shook her head.

"But you don't seem too broken by the news," he perceived, a bit surprised.

"Why would I be? I don't care whom he's touching as long as it's not me."

"Then may I ask _how_ you intended to have his children?" asked Harry sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes and flopped down into the other armchair, facing him again. "I never loved him, Harry. I was forced into marrying him and I felt disgusted by his touch… but my life was so empty that I was hoping to conceive… I was longing for a child to fill my empty life. With a child to love, it would have been easier to endure life with Draco. I supposed Narcissa felt the same when she had Draco… her son made her life less terrible with Lucius."

"How do you know this? Has she told you?"

"No, how could she have? She died before I married Draco… but that's what I think of her relationship to her son… that's what I feel."

"Interesting." Harry chewed his lower lip. "To me Narcissa looked like an upper class lady totally satisfied with her position."

"Appearances might be deceptive," Ginny pointed out. "Just like my wedding…" She glanced at Harry to see that he had stiffened. "I seemed to be a happy bride from the outside, but inside I was screaming with pain… especially when I spotted you in the Burrow's garden, looking at me with such a haunted expression… I felt my heart break into little pieces, even heard its crack… I wanted to tear myself out of Draco's arms and run to you, to explain you everything… but I couldn't."

"Why?" he whispered.

"I… I can't tell you…" she sniffed.

He felt like reaching out and take her hand to give it a reassuring squeeze, but held himself back. This was Draco Malfoy's wife, after all… she had been _touched _by a Malfoy, and that was enough to make Harry feel sick of the thought of touching her… But when he thought back, to his sixth year at Hogwarts, he realised that she hadn't felt revolted to touch him, not even when he had told her… no… better not even think of it, he chastised himself. Anyway, if she knew the whole truth, she wouldn't feel like touching him, either. Sometimes even he felt disgusted by himself when he just thought of it… Ginny must never know. _No one must ever know_…

And come to think of it, _why_ should he try and console her at all? _She_ had left him five years earlier, _she_ had broken his heart, and she was reluctant to tell him why… this cover-up of the forced marriage seemed simply fishy to him… why should he believe it? Just because her beautiful eyes were full of tears when she said it? What if she had merely learnt how to _play_? Being a Malfoy, pretence must have been a natural thing for her, probably Draco had been giving her lessons in it… Harry wrinkled his nose at the thought of what _else_ Draco could have given her lessons in…

"Ginny," he spoke up finally, forcing himself to ignore the lump that had risen in his throat when seeing her cry. "You said you came here to talk, but when I try to talk about certain things, you say you can't speak about them…"

"You don't seem too willing to talk about certain things either," she pointed out.

He nodded, looking a bit sad. "I miss those times when we were so open with each other, Ginny."

"So." A small smile appeared on her lips. "This means you still remember those times…"

"I do. I wish I could remember only those happy times… but no… life's never so easy, never so fair."

"Especially to Harry Potter, right?" she asked with a wistful little smile.

"To me, and to those I love."

Ginny wondered whether she belonged to those whom Harry loved, but his face was as expressionless as ever, so she couldn't read from it. She was starting to think that it had been pointless to come here, she hadn't got to know anything she had wanted, and he seemed to be so distant and cynical that she feared she'd never be able to get close to him again. He had been accusing her of hiding things, while she was sure that he was hiding much more than she was. She wished things could again be like they had been in her fifth Hogwarts year when Harry and she had got together…

But their happiness had been short-lived. At the beginning of his final school year, Harry had already been hiding something from her, and she had never managed to get it out of him. He had looked concerned about something, perhaps even ashamed… but now, he looked different. Not concerned, but hopelessly broken, not ashamed but full of self-accusation… what could he have done that turned him like that?

_I think I'd better go and never come back_, she told herself and was just about to stand up when the door of the room creaked. Since now Ginny was sitting in the armchair whose back was turned away from the door, she didn't see at once who had entered.

Harry, however, didn't seem surprised by the visitor.

"Took you long enough to find me," he said nonchalantly.

"The Tracking Charm hasn't been working perfectly since you left the Circle," a female voice replied impatiently, and Ginny leaned out of her armchair to look at the owner of the voice.

In the doorframe there was a tall, black-haired, dark-skinned woman, with huge dark-brown eyes. Ginny would have said that she was pretty, had she not had a rather haggard look to her. Her wavy black hair was dishevelled and her face revealed exhaustion and suffering. Strangely she seemed to wear an expression reminiscent of Harry's.

The woman seemed to have noticed Ginny peering out of the armchair, because she said: "Miss Weasley, I presume? Or… Mrs Malfoy?"

"Do we know each other?" Ginny stood up, frowning.

"No, you surely don't know me, but I know a lot about you," the woman replied and walked up to them. "Harry told me everything about you."

"Harry?" Ginny gave the young wizard a questioning stare. "Would you introduce us to each other?"

Harry looked from her to the other woman, then back at her, looking slightly uneasy.

"So, Phaedra, this is Virginia Malfoy. Ginny, this is Phaedra Potter."

"Potter?" Ginny blinked.

"Er, yeah," Harry flustered a bit. "My wife."


	4. The Circle of Hermes

**Author's note in April, 2005:** this chapter, as many others in many of my fics has been reuploaded since it had lyrics in it that I had to delete (and I didn't trust ffnet's quick-edit). Certainly you can read the full version in my yahoo group. 

**Chapter 4**

The Circle of Hermes

"Your… your wife?" Ginny breathed, feeling that her heart had suddenly sunk into her stomach.

"Yes." Harry nodded. "My wife, whom I told _not to_ come after me, but I'm not surprised that she did. She's as stubborn as a mule."

"Harry Potter, don't talk about me as though I weren't here!" Phaedra snapped. "Of course I've come after you, I can't let you leave the Circle so easily!"

"Phaedra…" Harry sighed. "Didn't I make myself clear when I said that I quit?"

"Oh, it _was_ clear, Harry, but I can't let you quit just like that!" His wife replied irritably. "You're too deep into it to leave, and don't forget that if you quit, I'll have to quit, too!"

"Then find yourself another partner." He shrugged.

"Hah! Easy to say, Harry!" She stamped her foot. "As though it were so easy to replace you!"

Ginny was turning her head from one to the other so quickly that she felt she was watching a table tennis match. She had absolutely no idea what the other two were talking about.

"I don't care whether you replace me or not, I said I quit!" Harry shouted.

"But the Circle! You can't let them down! And you can't let me down!"

"And why, if I may ask?" he growled with his hands balled into fists. "The Circle pretty much let me down when Daffy was kidnapped, and you didn't seem to care about freeing her too much either!"

"What?" The dark haired witch hissed, her eyes blazing with fury. "Are you blaming _me_ now? I tried to help you, Harry, and if you remember, I was there too at the end!"

"At the end, yes!" Harry's emerald eyes flared up. Ginny had never seen him this angry before. "You got there when it was already too late!"

"To hell with you, Harry!" Phaedra spat, tears running down her cheeks. "Don't you ever dare blame me for being late! It wasn't my fault and wasn't your fault either! And don't you ever think that it's not hurting me just as much as it's hurting you! I'm suffering, too!"

For a moment Harry regarded her with his black eyebrows furrowed and his lips pressed tightly together. Then he nodded. "Sorry. You're right. But I still can't go back with you. I no longer want anything to do with the Circle. Find yourself a new partner and forget about me."

"Forget about you?" Phaedra's lips trembled. "How could I? After all we've been through together? Why are you leaving me, Harry? Just because of Daffy? Was she the only link between the two of us?" She wiped her tears away, sniffing. "Tell me, Harry, have you ever loved me?"

A minute of silence ensued and Harry looked away from his wife, glaring into the fire.

Ginny didn't know what to do - back out of the room and leave the couple to themselves, or clear her throat? She had the impression that the Potters had both forgotten about her presence.

When the silence started to become awkward, Harry spoke up, his voice barely audible.

* * *

"I don't know, Phaedra. I no longer know anything." He turned around to look at his wife who had dried her tears and was now looking at him with the dignity of a princess. "I've never told you I loved you, have I, Phaedra?"

"No. Now that I think of it, you haven't," she replied icily.

"Then I have never lied to you. I owe you nothing and you owe me nothing. You're free."

"Am I?" She drew herself up and stepped to him. "Then what do you think this is?" She showed him her right hand with her wedding ring on it. That was when Ginny's eyes shifted to Harry's right hand, but saw no wedding ring on it. Harry must have got rid of it.

"This, Phaedra, is a symbol," the young wizard said. "And our marriage has been just symbolic, too."

"It never meant to you more than a symbol, did it?" she asked sadly.

Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"All right, then." Phaedra held up her head. "I understand. And now, if you don't mind, I'll find myself a room in this big house."

"If you want to." Harry shrugged and watched her leave.

"Why is she staying?" asked Ginny after the door banged shut.

"Because she's not the type to give up this easily," he replied, sinking back into an armchair.

Ginny was surprised by his nonchalant inflection… as if he hadn't been surprised to still see her here. Ginny had expected him to shudder at her words as though he had just realised that she was still there… but no. Obviously he hadn't forgotten for a single second that she was there and yet he didn't mind having a husband-and-wife row in front of her. Even if he had been embarrassed about it, he hid it well. Perhaps Ginny hadn't been right to think that he could never hide his feelings - apparently he had learnt to, or at least partly learnt to.

"But… you have told her your opinion quite clearly, haven't you? Is she that slow on the uptake?"

"No." Harry leant back into the cushions. "Actually she's quicker on the uptake than any other woman I've ever known, save perhaps for Hermione. She's just a bit hard to persuade. I told her I quit days ago and yet she refused to accept it, came after me, and will be following me around until I give in. But that will never happen."

Ginny wanted to ask 'Will she then follow you around as long as you live?', but thought better of it.

For some reason she didn't even feel jealous of Harry's wife - he didn't love that woman, did he? At least they were both living in unhappy marriages; she with Draco, Harry with Phaedra. Not that Harry's unhappiness should have made her happy, but she couldn't help feeling some sort of satisfaction.

"You know," she spoke up, "I didn't understand much from what you two were talking about. What have you quit? What is this circle? Who's Daffy?"

While asking the first two questions, Ginny saw nothing on Harry's features, they were totally indifferent. However, when she asked her last question, a dark cloud ran across his face.

"None of your business," he replied. "Perhaps you should leave."

But she wasn't this easy to get rid of. "I offer you a deal, Harry."

He arched an eyebrow at her.

"Let's put our cards on the table. Tell me about these things and I'll tell you how Draco forced me to marry him."

For a while Harry's eyes seemed to be scanning her features, invisible cogwheels whirring in his head.

"All right. Ask away."

"What sort of circle have you quit?"

"It's called Circle of Hermes. Smaller than the Order of the Phoenix, but more effective… at least most of the time," he added bitterly. "Anyway, it's a Greek organisation against magical crimes."

"Is it working against You-Know-Who?" Ginny asked.

"Just partly. It deals with all sorts of magical crimes like a police force, but it's not exactly… authorised."

"A freelance organisation?"

"Yes, also a non-profit one, working for making the world better." He gave her a sarcastic smile. "As though the world deserved to be made better… Not that I'm complaining, it still beats Dumbledore's pathetic Order of the Phoenix in every respect."

Ginny didn't know how to react to his cynicism. "In what respect does it beat the Order?"

"It has better connections and better security. All members sign a magical contract and if one of them betrays it, he'll -"

"…get SNEAK written all over his face?" She guessed with a grin.

"No. He'll be struck by lighting as soon as the traitorous words leave his mouth. It's called the Zeus Curse and it's pretty efficacious. After the first time someone tried to ignore it and got reduced to ashes, no one tried again."

Horrified, Ginny gasped for breath. "And… if you're talking to me about this Circle, aren't you _betraying_ it?"

"No, because I'm not talking about the Circle's plans and secrets. Also, it's not exactly a secret that the Circle exists, and if I just talk about its activities in general, I'm not betraying it. Even the Greek Ministry of Magic knows about it and tolerates its actions. The Ministry folks aren't too happy with the Circle when it rounds up the criminals quicker then their Aurors, but they let the Circle do it as long as it helps them keep the magical world clean of the scum."

"Does it operate only in Greece?" she asked curiously.

"No, all over the world, but its headquarters are in Greece. Phaedra and I have been on missions in the U.S.A., Brazil, Egypt, Italy, Norway, Guatemala, China, Mongolia, Australia, Hawaii… and many other places."

Ginny gave him a surprised look. "How could you fulfil your missions when you don't speak the languages of those countries?"

"Easily." Harry shrugged. "There's a charm that enables you to understand languages and makes the listener understand you when you're speaking in your language, even if the listener is a Papuan. The spell was invented by a member of the Circle about five hundred years ago, but not many wizards know about it. I don't know whether Dumbledore knew about it at all… at least, I doubt it."

"Why?" asked Ginny, who couldn't imagine that Albus Dumbledore _wouldn't_ know about something.

"Because Hagrid had quite a difficult time when he went to the giants. You know, most of them didn't speak English. Hagrid was lucky to have someone translate for him. I expect if Dumbledore had known about this spell, he would have cast it on Hagrid and Madame Maxime to spare them the trouble. Anyway, I think that the idea for the charm originates from the Bible."

"The Bible?" She blinked. She couldn't imagine what the Bible could have to do with magic.

"Yep." Harry nodded. "New Testament. When the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, they could preach in their own language, yet be understood by people from all countries."

"You know, you scare me again," Ginny said. "Being a secret agent, knowing spells not even Dumbledore knew…"

"I wouldn't call myself a secret agent." Harry shook his head. "But yes, in a way I know more than Dumbledore did. Special vision without a magical eye, wandless magic in certain cases, etc, etc…"

"You opened the door for me without a wand?" Her eyes widened.

"I did. Shut Mrs Black up, too."

"Saw it." Ginny chuckled. "Did you conceal your scar as well?"

"Had to. I wasn't supposed to be running after wrongdoers with my famous scar, was I? Without it no one knew who I was. It was rather pleasant to live without people gaping at me all the time."

"Why, didn't they recognise you from your name?"

"Not likely, since I was using pseudonyms, of course."

Ginny couldn't help but feel some kind of admiration mixed with concern. Harry here was talking about things that almost frightened her, and he was doing it so nonchalantly as though being a secret agent or a self-appointed policeman was the most natural thing in the world.

However, she didn't want to show him her emotions about the matter and decided to act as casually as possible. "I like the sound of this Circle, it must be great," she said contemplatively. "But why did you quit, huh? And why did your wife say that if you quit she also has to?"

"Because in the Circle we work in pairs. The two people in a pair know each other very well, and when they form a pair, they cast a Tracking Charm on each other, which helps them to find the other if they split up in a mission. Since I left the Circle, the Tracking Charm between Phaedra and me has been weakening, that's why it took her a day to find me. Anyway, now that I quit, she has to find a new partner soon, and if she doesn't, she has to leave the Circle too, because no member is allowed to work alone for security reasons."

"But why have you quit?" Ginny persisted.

A shadow appeared on Harry's face again and Ginny wasn't sure she had done the right thing when asking it again. However, Harry - though seemingly reluctantly - started to speak:

"It happened a week ago…" he said in a wavering voice. "A Sicilian criminal Phaedra and I were after kidnapped Daffy to get back at us for having caught his brother. Vendetta, you know…" Seeing Ginny's bewildered expression, he added: "Daffy is short for Daphne… our daughter."

"Your daughter?" she breathed.

He nodded. "I found the criminal first, before Phaedra did, and fought the bloke…" His eyes seemed to be watering for a second, but he blinked back the tears. "He was a lunatic, Ginny… he… he tortured… tortured my daughter… a little four-year old… when I saw her tiny body curled up on the ground, heard her whimpers, my mind got clouded with an all-consuming anger, and I… I cast the Cruciatus on him… for the first time since casting it on Bellatrix Lestrange…" he paused, looking for words. "This time… I managed to do it properly. Bellatrix had told me that I needed to mean it, to want to cause pain, and this time I meant it. I… I went on torturing him for minutes and enjoyed his screaming…" He gulped and looked into the fire, not daring to meet Ginny's eyes. "I had never felt anything like this Ginny… I felt evil, sadistic, inhuman… but I felt he deserved it. Then… then… I killed him."

The young witch clutched at the armrests of her chair.

"Yes… I'm a murderer, Ginny. I had never before taken the life of anyone. I was chasing them, I used to stun them, petrify them, but… never kill. I… I had been standing over his dead body for minutes when I heard Daffy's whimper again and realised what I had done… I rushed to her and took her into my arms… she looked up at me with those huge green eyes of hers and said 'it hurts, Daddy'…" Now Harry was no longer trying to hold back his tears, they were flowing freely down his cheeks. "She died in my arms, Ginny, and Phaedra arrived with the other Circle members too late… they only found me kneeling next to a dead body, holding the other dead one in my arms… they couldn't help. No matter how wonderful they were, they couldn't save my daughter… I possessed all their knowledge, and _still_ couldn't save her…" He stood up and started pacing the room. "I no longer felt I had a place among them. Especially because Phaedra had drawn me into the Circle, and the only reason why I stayed with Phaedra was that Daffy existed…"

"Did you… did you marry her because -"

"…she got pregnant, yes." He nodded. "I believe she did it deliberately, to 'chain' me to herself, but I was never mad at her for it. I had wanted that child so badly… to have someone to love, love as much as my own parents must have loved me while they lived… Daffy was my sunshine, without her my life is pointless…"

Ginny stood up and reached out to squeeze his hand, which he received gratefully.

Now she understood what Harry had meant when he had said that there were worse things than not being able to bear children… seeing your child die must have been much, much worse…

"I'm sorry, Harry," she whispered.

"Don't be… not your fault." He shook his head. "It's all mine."

"Yours?" She breathed. "What do you mean? You tried to save her, didn't you?"

"Yes, but… it would have been easier not to have this child at all…"

"What are you talking about?" She furrowed her brow.

"The truth," he replied. "When… when I got to know about Phaedra's pregnancy, she offered to terminate it. Certainly I knew that she only conceived to keep me around, and if I hadn't wanted to stay with her, she would have terminated it. But… I didn't let it. Couldn't let it… I didn't want to lose this one, too…" He ran his fingers nervously through his unruly hair, chewing his lower lip. "But now I wish I had let Phaedra get rid of it, then my heart wouldn't have broken into pieces."

"Harry…" Ginny said in a hushed voice. "What did you mean by 'losing this one, too'?"

Harry looked at the window that opened, presumably with wandless magic, since he hadn't drawn out his wand, neither had he touched it. As the shutters opened, light flooded into the dark room, myriads of tiny grains of dust dancing in it, gleaming like some golden rain.

Harry felt a little bit of its brightness filter into his heart, encouraging him…

"There's another one, Ginny."

"Another?" She frowned. "From Phaedra?"

"No."

"Then…" Her eyes widened as the realisation struck her. "Then the Girl-With-No-Name?"

"Yes." Harry nodded, leaning onto the windowsill, bathing his face in the radiant sunshine, his mind wandering back to his sixth year at Hogwarts…


	5. The Impostor and the Psychologist

**A/N:** sorry for the late update, but I've been busy writing my diploma, and also formatting this chapter manually took me ages - ever since chapter 3 got uploaded in such a stupid way, I've been formatting my chapters by putting html tags everywhere, and such a long chapter required a lot of time to format. This chapter contains some material that might come close to R rating. I don't think it reaches it, but better be warned ;)   
  


**Chapter 5**

The impostor and the psychologist

  
  
_My soul lies stiff-froz'n in the winter of night,  
With never a candle to shed any light.  
There's no peace around me, just blood strife and tears;  
I cannot amend this, amidst all my fears.  
I'm used, and betrayed, and fed up all through:  
Forgive me, absolve me, and hold me to you._ (original poem by Michael and AgiVega)   
  
_Christmas, 1996_   
Harry was gazing at the fire crackling under the mantelpiece in the Gryffindor common room, deeply lost in his thoughts. He had never, ever felt so lonely. Every other sixth year Gryffindor had left for the holidays - even his two best friends. Ron and Hermione had realised their true feelings for each other just weeks before Christmas and now they were spending the holidays together at the Burrow. Harry, however, wasn't allowed to leave Hogwarts. He had pleaded with the headmaster, but Dumbledore was resolute in keeping Harry under his crooked nose. Harry had then pleaded with him at least to let him spend Christmas at 12 Grimmauld Place with Lupin and the Order if he wasn't allowed to go to the Burrow. But Albus couldn't be persuaded. Harry wondered whether this could be put down to Dumbledore's fear that he'd again get into trouble or get caught by Voldemort… Harry was annoyed. Or rather angry. Angry with the whole world, especially Dumbledore. Had Dumbledore not waited too long to ask Snape to teach Harry Occlumency, then Voldemort wouldn't have been able to penetrate into Harry's dreams and lure him to the Department of Mysteries… then Sirius would still be among the living… And after all that, what did Harry get from Dumbledore? A confusing prophecy with some vague explanation and the confession that the headmaster had screwed it all up by not telling him the truth earlier. Yes, Harry was mad at the headmaster. In his eagerness to spare Harry the terrible knowledge of his fate, Albus had given Voldemort a chance to ruin Harry's life even more. Harry still barely could believe that he had to become a murderer in order to survive… or get murdered by the Dark Lord. He simply couldn't cope with the weight placed on his shoulders by this prophecy. He wondered how he would have reacted, had he got to know this years earlier. Probably he would have been crushed. Such a burden would have ruined even those few happy moments he had had in his first four Hogwarts years…. but if he had got to know it earlier, then perhaps he would have managed to adjust himself to it by now. However, this way the shock was still too new and strong to make him able to think of anything else. It was Christmas and Harry was thinking of death… His own or that of Voldemort… and it surprised him that he didn't really care whose death it was. He'd be thrilled to see Voldemort die, but the idea of killing him with his own hands made him feel queasy. And if Voldemort won… then it'd be over. For a moment Harry almost wished it were over, he longed to be dead, to be together with his parents and Sirius… A spark jumped out of the fire and burnt a tiny hole in his trousers. The pain was sudden and unexpected enough to break his train of thought. _What was I thinking?_ he chastised himself. _If I die, then it means that Voldemort wins and then he'll wreak havoc on the whole world!_ He flicked his wand at the hole, saying Reparo, but the burn on his skin didn't vanish but ached for hours. Surely it'll leave a small white spot on his skin, as a reminder never even to think of the possibility of the Dark Lord triumphing. He couldn't be so selfish and die, letting Voldemort's terror loose on the world - not even if his deepest desire was to stop existing. There were very few people who could say that their death would bring about a real catastrophe, but Harry belonged to those few, and he wasn't happy about it. He wasn't happy about it at all. But - if he asked himself what he _could be_ happy about nowadays, he found nothing. Absolutely nothing. His heart was empty, save for one single emotion: anger. When Ron and Hermione had told him that they had got together, he had felt a pang of jealousy. Under normal circumstances he should have been happy for them, but since when had Harry lived under normal circumstances? He was mad at himself for not being able to share his friends' joy, but how could he have, when he was so lonely? After the fiasco with Cho last year he doubted he'd ever get the chance to love someone romantically. But perhaps he didn't even want to. After all that had happened at the end of the previous school year, he felt that love belonged to his lesser concerns. It was somehow… beneath him. He still felt a bit jealous if he saw happy couples, but then he thought of the prophecy and found his jealousy and craving for a relationship ridiculous. When Ron and Hermione had offered to stay with him at Hogwarts for Christmas, he had resolutely, almost rudely turned them down. Now that he reflected on it, he felt a pang of remorse for having been rude to the two people who most cared for him in the world, and their absence was almost painful. With a sudden thought he decided to forget about all the pain and loss, and do something useful for a change. There was for example his Potions assignment. Strangely a grin spread on his face - he remembered that summer day he had received his OWL results. At first he had thought he had read it wrong, but no, there had been no mistake: he had got an O for his Potions exam. This meant that _he had_ to continue studying that subject (which he also needed to become and Auror) and poor Professor Snape had to endure him in his classes. He wished he could have seen Snape's expression when the Wizarding Examination Authority sent him the corrected test papers and he saw that Harry Potter had received an O. It surely must have exceeded Snape's expectations. So, Harry jumped up from the armchair in front of the common room fireplace and headed down to the library. On his way he passed Professor McGonagall whom he gave a smile to - he had learnt to respect this old witch more than ever in his fifth year - the way Minerva had defied Dolores Umbridge was something marvellous. Madame Pince gave him a questioning look when he entered the library - she clearly hadn't expected anyone to want to study on Christmas Eve. Harry was just about to snatch a book called _Potion of No-Confidence_ off a shelf when somebody stepped up to him. "Happy Christmas, Harry." "Happy Christmas, Cho," he answered blankly, wondering what she could be doing here. "I thought you had left for the holidays." "Originally I wanted to leave, but certain family problems occurred and I stayed instead," she shrugged. "Family problems? I hope nothing serious," he replied politely. "I'd rather not talk about them," she sighed, "at least… not here. It'd be nicer over a Butterbeer, though…" "Er…" he had a vague idea what she was hinting at, but didn't voice it. _If she wants something, she'll say it_, he thought. "You know that it's a Hogsmeade weekend?" Cho asked. "Yeah, all the other five Gryffindors who stayed for the holidays are at Hogsmeade now. I just didn't feel like going, I barely know any of them." "I had the same problem: no company. Do you think we could perhaps go down into the village? Together?" For a moment Harry felt amused. What he would have given just a year ago to spend Christmas Eve with the Charming Cho Chang, and now he didn't feel allured by the possibility. However, spending the day with Cho was still much more alluring than spending the day in the company of the Potions book… and what could he lose if he accepted her invitation? "I don't really feel like going to Hogsmeade," he said finally. "Oh," she looked disappointed. "But I wouldn't say no to a walk around the castle." Her face brightened. "Great. Let's meet in the Entrance Hall, I'll go and get my cloak!" With that she was already out of the library. Harry grabbed _Potion of No-Confidence_ off the shelf - he'd occupy himself with it in the evening.   
  


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They were standing by the lake, watching as the sun's feeble rays glittered on the thick ice covering it. Harry wondered what the Giant Squid could be doing in the depths of the water - couldn't it be bored when it couldn't come to the surface? "It's beautiful, isn't it?" Cho spoke up in a small voice. "Yeah, it's really pretty," he nodded without looking at her. "Harry?" "Yeah?" he turned slightly in her direction to see her lips trembling and tears welling up in her eyes. _Oh, no!_ he thought. _Not this again!_ He didn't feel like listening to her laments over this being the second Christmas without Cedric. However, what she said next took him by surprise: "Harry, my parents are getting divorced!" "Oh…" he didn't know what to say, he had no idea how to console someone in such a situation. "I'm… sorry, Cho." At this point she flung herself on his neck, sobbing into his red-and-yellow striped Gryffindor scarf. "Do you… do you want to talk about it?" She looked up, sniffed and nodded. "But not out here. It's… freezing." "In the Three Broomsticks over a Butterbeer?" he suggested, handing her a tissue. "No," she blew her nose. "I'd rather someplace… private. I don't want people to see me cry." _It didn't seem to bother you last year, almost the whole school saw you crying, you made no secret of your grief over Cedric_, he thought somewhat bitterly, but knew better than to say it to her face. If she needed to talk, they they'll talk, and if she needed privacy, then he'll make sure they'll have it. "What about Gryffindor Tower? There's not a soul there now." Her face lit up slightly. "Perfect. I always wanted to see your common room." So he steered her upstairs, relieved that they hadn't met any teacher or ghost on their way - he wasn't _supposed to_ be letting people from other houses into Gryffindor Tower, after all. "_Umbridge is an ugly toad_," he told the Fat Lady the password that he suspected must have been invented by none other than the wonderful Professor McGonagall. The Fat Lady gave him a disapproving look, clearly meaning that Cho shouldn't be entering, but let them in without a word. Perhaps she didn't feel like arguing on Christmas Eve. "Really pretty," Cho said admiringly as she looked around, taking off her coat. "I love all these warm colours. You know, our common room is also nice, but it's full of various shades of blue, and in winter it increases the feeling of coldness." She took a seat in one of the armchairs by the fire. Harry flopped down into the other one facing hers. "Okay, then… if you want to talk… I'll be a good listener." A grateful smile spread on her face. "Thank you, Harry, you're a real friend, not like some others…" "What about Michael Corner? Isn't he a good enough friend?" he tried to joke. "Michael? I don't know what you're talking about." "Why, aren't you two a couple?" he raised an eyebrow. "Not anymore," she shook her head. "I no more have anyone, Harry…" Her eyes filled with tears again. _Reminds me of myself_, he thought sourly. "Hey, don't talk like that…" he reached out to touch her hand and since she didn't seem to want to pull it away, he gave it an encouraging squeeze. "I'm here and I'm your friend. And I'll listen to whatever you have to say." "You are such a dear, Harry," she sighed, covering his right hand holding her left one with her other hand. "I don't even know where to begin… I'm… so confused! When I left for Hogwarts in September, everything seemed to be perfect between my parents and now… it's ruined. I got this letter yesterday morning telling me that I shouldn't go home because everything is in chaos, dad's moving his stuff out of the house… the letter was smudged here and there. I think mum must have been crying when she wrote it." "And why is your dad leaving? What is the reason for their divorce?" Harry asked. "Dad… found someone else!" now Cho burst into tears again, her whole body shaking. "Found… some… young chick… and is leaving mum for heeeer!" "The bastard," Harry breathed. She looked up, a small smile on her lips. "Exactly. A bastard!" "I wish I could help you somehow, Cho…" "You could…" she whispered. "How?" "Just hold me tight." With that Cho rose from her seat and took a place next to Harry. He instinctively put his arms around her and rocked her gently. For a fleeting moment he thought he felt a bit more for her than sorry; as she rested her head on his shoulder he thought that he was even enjoying the predicament… certainly not her pain, he would never enjoy anyone's pain (save for perhaps Bellatrix Lestrange, a shame he hadn't been able to torture her properly with the Cruciatus Curse), but whether he liked to admit it or not, he did enjoy holding this beautiful, fragile creature in his arms. He had been convinced that he no longer had any feeling for her, but then what was he feeling now? Surely just his hormones… Yeah, that had to be it: his stupid hormones making a complete fool of him again. But he wasn't letting them make him appear like an idiot again! No way! He had made his decision. Slowly he'd disentangle himself from her embrace, express her his heartfelt commiseration and guide her politely out of Gryffindor Tower. However, fate - or Cho - had other plans in mind. As soon as Harry loosened his embrace a bit to draw back, her arms sneaked around his neck and her lips got mysteriously plastered to his. So, what about disentangling himself from Cho's embrace and guiding her out of the Tower? Harry no more knew. All he knew was that his body was on fire, inflamed by her searing kiss that was nothing like the kiss they had shared the previous Christmas. That one had been quick and chaste, this one was long and passionate, making his mind clamour for more. Tentatively he slipped his hands to the small of her back, then guided them gently up along her spine, sending a tremor throughout her body. So far she wasn't resisting to his touch, so he decided to try a little lower and placed his left hand on her thigh, moving it tantalisingly slowly upward until she moaned into his mouth. Perhaps this was what brought Harry back to his senses. He broke the contact and pulled back, gasping for breath. Cho's face fell. "Why have you stopped?" she whispered. "Because… because I'm not sure about this, Cho. Look, I like you, but… I'm not in love with you, and I don't think it'd be proper to… to do it with you if I'm not in love with you…" he cast his eyes down and started chewing his lower lip. "It… wouldn't be… fair towards you. Also, I don't want to take advantage of your predicament. You're suffering now, Cho, you're vulnerable. I don't want to hurt you even more." "Harry?" He looked up from his shoes to see her smiling. "I knew you were a real gentleman who wouldn't take advantage of my predicament… and I appreciate it a lot… but for the time being I don't need you to be a gentleman… I don't want you to continue behaving chastely towards me… I want you inflamed with desire… burn for me, Harry…" And he did. What could he lose, after all? He had been lonely, now he had company. He had been longing for a relationship, now he might get it. Perhaps he'd even relearn to love Cho. As for his concerns about 'not behaving properly' - he didn't care for them anymore. Probably Ron and Hermione were doing the very same thing in the Burrow (God forbid if Mrs Weasley caught them!), besides, he was either going to be murdered any time soon or would have to kill, which he wasn't looking forward to, either… his life was a total catastrophe, so why deny himself the chance to have some fun for a change? "Not here," he drew back just long enough to catch his breath. "The others might be coming back soon." "Where, then?" "My dorm," he panted, helping her off her seat, catching her lips in a kiss again. They never knew how they had made their way up to his dormitory, or how long it had taken them (given that they had stopped every three seconds to cuddle and kiss), but by the time they reached Harry's bed, they had practically stripped each other of all clothing. As he pressed her against the bedpost, wearing only his Snitch-covered boxers, she cast an amused glance at his lower parts, her eyes stopping on a dark red spot on his right thigh. "What's that?" she pointed at it. "That?" Harry shrugged. He had already forgotten about the spark burning him. "That's only a reminder that I _have to live_". "Huh?" she furrowed her finely shaped black eyebrows. "Nothing," he replied, closing her into his arms again. He had to live, for life wasn't totally pointless… there was for example Voldemort he had to vanquish, there was the world he had to save, there were girls he had to love… and he didn't mind at all that Cho would be his first. Happy Christmas, Harry.   
  


* * * * *

  
  
When Harry woke up the sun was already about to dive behind the horizon, turning the sky into a painter's palette. He blinked and groped around for Cho, but only felt the cold pillow where her warm body should have been lying. "Cho?" he murmured, slipping on his glasses. Apparently she had left without a trace, the only sign that proved Harry hadn't dreamed it all was a reddish stain on the sheet. Disgruntled, Harry muttered _Scourgify_, pointing his wand at the sheet and was just about to bend down for his boxers when something caught his eye. A hair. One single hair on the pillow. However, the hair wasn't black but reddish. For a second Harry thought that perhaps it could belong to Ron who occasionally sat down on Harry's bed to pull on his socks when he had already made his own bed and didn't want to mess it up again. Ron, as a prefect, was supposed to keep his bed in perfect order to set example to the others. Harry reached out for the hair and padded with it to the window to have a look at it in the last rays of the sun. He was appalled to realise that this hair wasn't exactly red, but reddish blond, and it was way too long to belong to Ron. But then… whose hair could it be? Surely not Cho's… Hastily Harry threw on his clothes and ran out of Gryffindor Tower. He had to find Cho at all costs. He knew where the Ravenclaw common room was, but he had never been in there. As he approached it, he prayed to meet a Ravenclaw who'd open its door for him. He was in luck. As he rounded the corner, he almost ran headlong into Luna Lovegood, who wore her usually dreamy expression and a necklace with matching earrings made of Fizzing Whizzbees. "Luna, am I glad to see you!" Harry panted. "Glad?" she gave him a quizzical look, her huge silvery eyes doubtful. "You don't look glad at all… your expression is rather haunted… something's worrying you." "There's nothing worrying me," replied Harry impatiently, not willing to discuss his love life with Loony Lovegood. "I'm just looking for Cho." "Cho Chang? She left for the holidays," the girl said. "Yesterday." "But… but I was talking to her only a few hours ago!" Harry protested. "That's out of the question," she shook her head, looking at Harry as though she thought he was a complete fool (which was rather remarkable, coming from Luna, Queen of Loonies). "She left yesterday, I even accompanied her and some of her friends to the station. Unfortunately I couldn't leave Hogwarts because Dad is abroad, getting an interview with a Finnish wizard who has recently opened a Crumple-Horned Snorkack farm, I can't wait to read about it in _The Quibbler_, and… Harry?" But he was already out of earshot, running towards the end of the corridor. "Merry Christmas to you, too," said Luna to herself as she watched his receding figure and thought it was unfair that people held her to be crazy when Harry here seemed to be madder than she could ever be. She wasn't hallucinating like he was, was she?   
  


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Harry reached the portrait of the Fat Lady in five minutes. "Password?" she asked sleepily. "I don't want to… er… I mean, it's about…" Harry was gasping for breath. "Calm down, young man," she smiled benignly at him. "Calm down? How could I?" he shouted aggressively. "I will not be spoken to like that," the Fat Lady grunted and turned her back on him. "I'm sorry… been under great pressure… didn't mean to hurt you…" Harry was still panting after the run. "Listen, remember the girl I brought up here late in the morning?" "Of course I do," she still sounded miffed. "I shouldn't have let her in, you know…" "Yeah, I know," Harry gabbled. "Tell me, what did she look like when I brought her here?" The Fat Lady turned around and gave him a look that suggested she thought he had lost his marbles. "Certainly she had long, black hair and Asian eyes." "And what did she look like when she left?" he pressed. "Well, I didn't see much of her then, to tell the truth. She had her cloak pulled over her face… why?" "Why, why, none of your business!" Harry growled. "_Umbridge is an ugly toad_!" Though somewhat unwilling to open the portrait hole after having been insulted like this, the Fat Lady let him in. The common room was empty again, the five Gryffindors who had stayed at the castle were very likely down in the Great Hall, having dinner. Harry sank into one of the armchairs by the fire, burying his face into his palms. "What have I done?" he whispered. "And _who_ have I done it with?"   
  


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Harry was inconsolable. Not even the wonderful presents he got from his friends managed to alleviate his concerns. Who had been this mystery girl and why had she disguised herself as Cho? Harry wondered how many doses of Polyjuice she had had to drink to keep up her deception for several hours… she also must have been a very good actress to make him believe she was Cho. Could she be one of the Hogwarts students who had a secret crush on him? It was possible, after all, and when he went down to have breakfast on Christmas day, his eyes immediately started scanning the students, trying to catch a glimpse of a girl with red-gold hair. No such luck. He was disappointed and even more confused - he had only gone down to the Great Hall to find the 'culprit', not to eat, since his inners were twitching madly, giving him the feeling that if he swallowed something, he'd be reacquainted with it a minute later. "Hey, Harry, you all right?" Luna joined him as he left the Great Hall. "Yeah, suppose so," he said, but knew that he didn't sound very convincing. "Something's really troubling you," she perceived, following him up the stairs. "C'mon, you can tell it to me, I'm no gossip…" "It's nothing, okay?" Harry burst out. "It's noth…" suddenly he clapped his hands over his scar and dropped to his knees, doubling up in pain. "Harry!" she gasped as he began retching, only bringing up some liquid - he hadn't eaten anything for a day, there wasn't much left in him to throw up. As soon as he stopped retching (one of the paintings looked miffed about Harry dirtying the landing), Luna crouched down to him, pressing her hand on his forehead. "And you dared say you were all right!" she shook her head in disbelief. "You're burning up, Harry, you've got to see Madame Pomfey at once!" "Nooo…" he wheezed, "I'm… I'm not ill. It was… Voldemort…" "What?" her huge eyes widened to look even bigger. "Voldemort… he was broadcasting again…" He glanced at her and saw from her expression that she didn't understand a thing from what he was talking about. "Voldemort… whenever he's angry or… or very happy about something, I feel it too," he explained, as white as a sheet. "And what do you think he felt now? Anger or happiness?" "I don't know…" he replied vaguely. "But… this rather reminded me of what I felt last year in Umbridge's office, just in a much greater amount… Voldemort had been happy then. I think… he's happy about something again." "Wonder what?" she pursed her lips. "If he's happy it means something terrible must have happened." "Yeah, I fear so," Harry agreed. "_Scourgify!_" with a flick of his wand he vanished the vomit, relieved that no one but Luna had seen it. (The painting on the wall gave him a 'that's more like it' stare).   
  


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Harry spent the next days in his dormitory, occupying himself with the Potions assignment, but found that it couldn't really take his mind off the recent events. Sometimes he felt an urge to go to Dumbledore and tell him everything, but his pride got the better of him. He was still too mad at the headmaster to want to share this with him; on the other hand, he thought this was something too private to tell Albus… or anyone. No one had anything to do with his love life, and he thought he'd die of shame if he had to relive it to the headmaster. He wasn't even sure whether he'd want to tell Ron and Hermione… certainly if it had been really Cho, then he'd call Ron aside the first evening he got back from the Burrow, would wink at him and say 'guess what happened on Christmas Eve'. But this way… no. He felt bewildered, used, dirtied… almost abused. He had wanted to sleep with Cho, not some impostor! He could barely believe that this was the second time someone had managed to deceive him by using Polyjuice… He should have suspected that it wasn't Cho when she didn't even mention Cedric or when she said she had no idea what Harry meant by hinting at Michael Corner. He was positive that the real Cho's parents weren't about to get divorced, and that the real Cho was still going out with Michael. _My stupid good heart again_, he thought bitterly. Had he not been so willing to 'help Cho', he wouldn't have been had. Damn his good heart…   
  


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At the beginning of January the castle filled with students returning from the holidays and Harry was glad to have people around him all the time - having to speak to them and listen to them made him more or less forget about the fake Cho. He soon noticed that he had been right when suspecting that Miss Chang was still with the Corner boy - once he caught a glimpse of them madly snogging under a staircase. Strangely it didn't make him feel jealous, rather made him wonder what Ginny was feeling now. Had she been in love with Michael? Harry didn't know. Harry took every opportunity to listen to people's Christmas stories - as long as he listened to them, he wasn't thinking of his own catastrophic one. Neville happily told him about the small greenhouse his Aunt Enid and Uncle Algie had built for him in the Longbottoms' huge garden, and a bit flustered he mumbled something about breeding a new species by crossing _Mimbulus mimbletonia_ and _Venomous Tentacula_ and naming it _Lunalumen Illustris_. Harry and Ron exchanged a grin - they had long noticed what Neville hadn't: that Neville was developing a huge crush on Loony Lovegood. When Harry asked Ron and Hermione about their Christmas, they blushed nervously. Harry thought he'd be tactful and question Ron about it in the evening when Hermione wasn't around to get embarrassed. Eventually Ron told him that his mum had secretly placed a snog-alarm-charm on his room, knowing what sort of relationship there was between him and Hermione. "So I was just about to unbutton her shirt, unaware of my room having been charmed, and in the next instant mum burst in, face red as the setting sun, shouting 'I will not have frolicking under my roof!' Imagine Hermione's face, it was even redder than mum's as she scampered out…" Ron grinned sheepishly at the memory. "Mum also placed this sort of alarm charm on Hermione's room - you know Percy's old room, and guess what else she did?" "No idea," shrugged Harry. "Put a chastity belt on Hermione?" "No," Ron blushed. "She added a new situation to the family clock in the kitchen. Now there's 'home', 'work', 'mortal peril' and 'snogging'." "No!" Harry gasped, stifling a chuckle. "Yes," Ron replied, woebegone. "With that clock we had no chance to even kiss let alone do other things! Sometimes I'm so mad at mum! I bet she and dad were snogging each other senseless in their sixth year, she should understand us, really…" Now he squinted at his friend in a rather peculiar way. "What?" asked Harry. Ron directed his glance at the floor, as though being embarrassed by something. "I know it sounds nasty, mate, but I was hoping to be the first of the two of us to… to…" "To what?" Harry playfully raised an eyebrow. "You know what," Ron grunted. "You got to kiss Cho Chang almost a year earlier than I got to kiss Hermione… I was hoping to be the first this time, since you haven't yet…" Though up till now Harry had been contemplating telling Ron about the 'trap' he had fallen into, now he was determined to keep it a secret. The shame that he had had to suffer because of his mum was quite enough for poor Ron, Harry didn't want to ruin his mood even more by 'bragging' that he had been the first again… _Let Ron believe that he can still beat me in this race,_ Harry thought. He felt a bit sad that he couldn't tell Ron, he was longing to tell someone (not Dumbledore of course), someone who'd understand him… Had his two best friends had an opportunity to make love over the holidays, then Harry would surely not have held himself back… perhaps he and Ron could also have compared notes… Or rather not… he wasn't sure he would have wanted a description of Hermione, the Saint Hermione, in such a situation. He also wasn't sure what he would have told Ron about his woman… he didn't even know who it had been, after all.   
  


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Weeks passed by, Quidditch training was back and Harry, new Captain of the Gryffindor team, had given the team quite a workout. He didn't seem to care about his team mates complaining about him being a slave-driver and whenever they started to groan and plead with him for a break, he only answered: "I'm working just as hard as you are, if you haven't noticed, lazy lot!" One February evening, after a particularly exhausting training session, Ginny caught up with him on his way back to the castle. "You're getting more and more like Oliver Wood, you know," she said in a half-amused, half-reproachful voice. "Am I?" he glanced at her and had to admit that her flaming red hair and face also reddened by the chill looked really pretty before the backdrop of the white snow and the clean starry sky. "I'm merely trying to make sure we win the next match against Ravenclaw, that's all." "That's all?" she folded her arms. "I don't think so. You weren't making us work this hard before the Gryffindor-Slytherin match back in October, although you considered the Slytherins much more dangerous opponents than the Ravenclaws." Harry didn't know what to reply, so he started walking again. "You aren't going to get rid of me that easily, Harry Potter!" Ginny shouted determinedly and caught up with him once more. "You've changed," she said, keeping up with his pace. "Have I?" he shrugged. "Everyone changes, Ginny. And so many things have happened to me that I really have the right to change, to be able to adjust to them." "Okay, name one," she replied challengingly. Harry stopped in his stride, although they had already reached the oak front door of the castle. "Just one? Sirius's death. Good enough a reason for you?" "No," she shook her head. "No, because this change I was talking about has happened to you recently. Sirius died in June and I remember what you were like in the autumn: sad, a bit introverted, but open. When Hermione asked you how you felt, you didn't hesitate to admit that you felt like shit." "How do you know?" he furrowed his eyebrows. "I was there in the common room," she answered as he opened the door and let themselves into the relative warmth of the Entrance Hall. "I heard it, Harry, and also saw it on your face, you made no secret of it. But now… you've changed. You no more seem sad, you are more outgoing than ever, yet… I feel this is not the true you, Harry." "Not the true me?" he echoed her words and started climbing the stairs. "What do you mean by that?" "I mean that you're not open anymore, Harry. You pretend to be open, you listen to everyone and talk to everyone, but…" "Is that a problem that I'm trying to socialise?" he grunted irritably. "No, under normal circumstances it wouldn't be a problem, but it just doesn't… seem real. As if you were using this overdone social life to… to… forget about something and don't tell me it's Sirius's death, because I won't believe you!" "Fine, don't believe me," he shrugged and continued his way upstairs. Suddenly the staircase moved and they had to grab the railing so as not to fall. "Great, now we won't get back to Gryffindor Tower," Harry murmured. "Or at least not the usual way," Ginny added and they started down the corridor. After a while the scenery got highly familiar to them, they were approaching the tapestry opposite the statue of Barnabas the Barmy, where the door to the Come and Go Room was to be found if one looked and wished for it properly. "Well, just what we need now," the girl said. "What do you mean? We need to go to Gryffindor Tower and what I really need is my bed." "No, Harry. What you really need is a talk," she shook her head. "Come on, it won't hurt." Seeing the encouraging smile on Ginny's face, he sighed. "All right."/p> As they entered the Room of Requirement, Harry was surprised to see his own bed standing alone in the middle of the room, along with a chair and a fireplace emitting wonderful warmth. "Well, you said you needed your bed," she grinned and took a seat on the chair. "Go on, lie down." "A bit of a funny way of talking," Harry remarked. "Reminds me of a Muggle psychiatric hospital." "Why, have you been there already?" she raised an eyebrow, her brown eyes glinting impishly. "Well, yeah," he laughed, but as she gave him a half-frightened, half-disbelieving stare, he added: "Last summer I had to accompany my Aunt Petunia and Dudley to a psychiatrist. You know, they didn't want to leave me alone at home in case I exploded the house… It was Dudley who needed a psychiatrist. He has been having these problems ever since the Dementor attack. He's been having nightmares, about his worst memories, I presume…" now he squinted at Ginny, smirking. "But to tell you the truth, I have no idea what Dudley's worst memory could have been… probably a birthday when he got 36 presents instead of 37?" Ginny chuckled, then her expression turned to serious. "See, Harry, you're doing it again." "What?" "The 'being-funny-and-great-to-talk-to', just to avoid talking or thinking about other things." "How perceptive," he said. "Yeah, I was hoping to make you forget why you brought me here." "But thank heaven my memory is still working perfectly." "Yeah. So… if your memory is so perfect, tell me: what were you saying when the staircase moved?" "I was saying that you were trying to forget about something. I'm sure that's why you've been giving us such a workout and training so hard yourself… to forget about something. To forget about something you're hiding from everyone else, Harry." "And what kind of therapy does the great psychiatrist suggest?" he taunted her, gazing at the bed's dark red canopy in a bored sort of way. "The best therapy is to talk it out of yourself. Open up, Harry, open your heart, relieve yourself of it, whatever it is… I give you my word as your mediwitch, that everything you say within these four walls will remain a secret." For a moment Harry diverted his stare from the canopy and regarded her with a penetrating stare. What he saw on Ginny's face was sincerity, calmness and a gentle determination - a determination to help him. He turned away from her, his mind reeling. Should he tell her everything? Wouldn't she despise him for what he had done? And would it help him if he told her? Well, he had wanted to tell someone for a while, he had felt it had been stifling him if he couldn't get it off his chest, yet… why Ginny? _Why, why, because you can't tell Ron, he'd feel truly miserable if you did; you also can't tell Hermione, she'd be outraged and scandalised; and you don't have any other close friends…_ his mind replied. "All right, Ginny," he said, still not looking at her. "At Christmas I shagged a girl and don't have the slightest idea who she was." After a minute of silence, when Harry hoped his words had sunk in, he cast a side-ways glance at the girl. "Oh, I see," she spoke up. "Er… as your psychiatrist…" "Say psychologist, that'd make me feel better," he interjected. "All right, then," she straightened her back. "As your psychologist I'm supposed to be asking questions, so… what the heck do you mean by you don't know who it was?" A sad smile appeared on Harry's face. "I believed her to be Cho Chang… but as it turned out, Cho had left for the holidays. I presume this impostor had used Polyjuice Potion to appear as Cho and seduce me. She succeeded." "I see," Ginny nodded. "And your main problem is that you don't know who it was, or rather that is _wasn't_ Cho?" When she saw his lips twitch in a nervous way, she hastily added: "Do tell me when I'm asking too personal questions. I'll stop, then." "No, no, no," he sat up to face her. "If we started this, then let's continue to its end." "Right. How do you fell about the events, Harry?" "Bad. Totally crappy. Just imagine yourself sleeping with… say, Michael Corner, then waking up and finding out that it couldn't have been him at all…" "I can't really imagine myself sleeping with Michael, but okay… let's just suppose it, for the therapy's sake… So what would I feel? I'd be bewildered. Frightened. Especially if I realised that we hadn't used protection." Ginny replied contemplatively, her glance shifting to his face, on which she saw horror. "Oh my, Harry, don't tell me you haven't…?" He gulped and hung his head. With a sigh she reached out and patted his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay, very likely the girl must have been a Hogwarts student having an enormous crush on the Boy Who lived, and Hogwarts students can go to Madame Pomfrey for an Afterevent Potion…" "But that's the point, Ginny, it can't have been a Hogwarts student," he replied. "She accidentally left a hair on my pillow, and it was reddish blonde. I haven't seen a Hogwarts student with such a hair-colour… except for Marietta Edgecombe, but she hates me with a fiery passion ever since she got those warts." She frowned. "Then… some witch who has always had something for you, probably read your interview in _The Quibbler_ about the night You-Know-Who returned… I bet you have loads of fans throughout Great Britain, even in other countries. You're a hero, Harry." "And that's exactly what I don't want to be!" he snapped jumping up. "I'm fed up with being a damn hero, I'm fed up with being the Boy Who Lived, I'm fed up with people's adoration just because Voldemort gave me this fucking scar! I'm fed up with Dumbledore keeping me in a golden cage, I'm fed up with Trelawney's stupid prophecy, I'm fed up with women having a crush on me! Why not put an article into the _Daily Prophet_, saying 'Hey, ladies, fox season over, Harry Potter season opens, all you have to do is get Cho Chang's hair and go, get your hero for a night!' Honestly…" Harry's voice faltered. "I'm fed up with it all." "Good shouting," Ginny stood up. "Feeling any better now?" "Yeah, a bit." "You know, you made me want to laugh at this Harry Potter season," she smiled, but when she met his angry glance, she willed herself to vanish the smile off her face. "Er… what sort of prophecy were you talking about?" "Bugger," he murmured. "I shouldn't have said that…" "When you're angry, sometimes you don't have control over what you're saying," Ginny stepped up to him, taking his hand. "Come, sit down here," she guided him to the fireplace, and they sat down on the hearthrug, facing each other. "If you don't want to tell me about it, it's okay…" "I think I want to," he replied. "Besides this stupid adventure at Christmas, the prophecy is the other thing most bothering me. It's… it's the one that used to be stored in that small glass sphere that Voldemort wanted from the Department of Mysteries." "The one that smashed?" "Yes. It smashed and the Death Eaters never got it, but Dumbledore has a copy of in his Pensieve. It's a prediction made by Trelawney." "Honestly, Harry," she said with an amused smirk, "why are you concerned about a prediction made by that old fraud?" "Because this one seems to be real," he pursed his lips. "And what does it say?" she asked. When he didn't reply for a minute, she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. He reached out tentatively and covered her hand with his other one. "It says that I'll either kill Voldemort or will be killed by him." He looked up to meet her eyes that were full with compassion. "Now I understand it, Harry," she whispered. "It's not a happy prophecy… it can't be easy to live together with the knowledge… or supposed knowledge of something like that." "No, it's really not easy. And what makes it even more difficult is that I can't talk to people about it. Not even Ron and Hermione. Ron would think it's a joke, coming from Trelawney, and Hermione would be frightened to death. I… I don't even know why I told _you_ at all." "Perhaps because I'm not as quick-tempered as Ron, nor as serious as Hermione." "Perhaps," he shrugged with a small smile. "I think it helped a bit… to talk to you, Ginny." "I knew it would," she beamed. Suddenly he felt engulfed in something warm, and felt the long-forgotten feeling of his stomach doing a back flip. Clearly not knowing how to react to his peculiar stare, she covered his right hand with her free, left one, now both their hands sandwiched between the other's. "You're blushing," he whispered. "Am not." "Are too." "Am not," Ginny said with as much dignity as the Queen. "I have sworn never to blush in your presence again, Harry Potter." "You shouldn't have. The blushing Ginny is sort of cute." "I thought you didn't like the blushing Ginny," she replied, trying to pull her hand out of his, but he held it firmly. "I didn't like the old Ginny blush, but I don't mind the new one blushing." "So, you like the new Ginny better?" she cocked her head, looking amused. "I think I do." "Great. The new Ginny must go now." Seeing his desperate expression, she quickly added: "Next therapy same time, same place next week." "All right," he nodded, smiling and let her disappear out of the Come and Go Room.   
  


* * * * *

  
  
Due to Ginny's 'therapy' Harry slowly changed back into his normal self - neither too introverted, nor too extroverted, but somewhere in the middle. He couldn't really put a finger on it, but Ginny's closeness calmed him. Ever since their first 'therapy' in the Room of Requirement Harry had been developing feelings for her, and was surprised to notice that he never felt uneasy in her presence like he had with Cho, he never felt worried that he'd say something stupid and scare her away - Ginny simply wasn't the sort of girl one could easily scare away - at least not anymore. From that frightened, shy little girl he had got to know so many years ago, she had turned into a determined, well-balanced young woman, who managed to give Harry moral support when he needed it, and managed to cheer him up when he was sad. Though neither of them said it aloud, after a while they started to consider the therapy-meetings as dates and they even developed a habit of holding each other's hands during these meetings.   
  
  
It was already the last week before the school year's end, and their last 'therapy', when Harry screwed up his courage and said: "Something funny occurred to me, Ginny." "What?" she asked, sitting on the hearthrug, encircling her drawn-up legs with her arms. "I just remembered what Ron said at the end of the last school year." "Why, what did he say?" "He said I should choose someone more cheerful than Cho…" "Funny, to me he said I should choose someone better than Michael next time…" she replied with a grin, knowing what he was getting at. When she had told Ron that she had chosen Dean Thomas instead, she had been merely joking. And now… were her dreams finally coming true? "I think," he slipped a bit closer to her on the hearthrug," I have found someone more cheerful than Cho…" "I think I have also found someone better than Michael…" she replied. "You're blushing again." "Maybe," she smirked, "but this time you're blushing, too." "Am not," he said defiantly. "Are too," she answered, leaning a bit closer. "Am not," he whispered, leaning forward like she had. "Are too," she said, barely audible, and their lips met in their first kiss. "I love you, Ginny," he breathed when they parted. "I love you too. But don't expect me to give you twelve children." "What…?" he blinked, then remembered having told her about Sybill's attempt to upset Umbridge. They both burst into laughter, then kissed again, laughed, kissed, laughed, kissed… "You know what?" he chuckled. "We could make an agreement: if I get chosen as Minister for Magic, then you'll give me twelve kids." "Deal," she held out her right hand and her shook it. "You'll never be Minister, Harry, and you know it as well as I do." "A boy can dream," he smiled. "Is it really your dream?" she raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "To become Minister for Magic?" "No," he shook his head, still grinning. "Rather to have a big family. Lots of little Potters, to whom I'd give all the love I could never get from my own parents." "Harry…" Before she could get sentimental, he added with a wink: "Not to mention that creating those kids is a lot of fun, too." She rolled her eyes, then looked back at him with a more serious expression. "Just to think that we would never have got together if you hadn't been misled by that woman…" She couldn't finish her sentence, for he reached out and put his index finger on her lips. "Sshhh… don't ever talk about her again. Forget about her, I have already forgotten. Whoever she was, she belongs to the past and will never stand in our way."   
  


* * * * *

  
  
The summer dragged, Harry had never longed so much to go back to the wizarding world. He and Ginny had gone official after their last 'therapy', and were writing each other daily. She wrote him about Ron's attempts to convince their mother to let Hermione spend some time at the Burrow, but Molly couldn't be persuaded. Despite the utter boredom at number 4 Privet Drive, there were some little things that lifted Harry's spirits beside Ginny's letters. First of all: he had come of age and was finally allowed to do magic when Muggles didn't see him. Then, of course, there were all the wonderful birthday presents he had received from his friends (the absence of Sirius' usual present was still painful), and Harry couldn't help but feel delighted when Dudley's first date with Piers Polkiss' sister Priscilla turned out to be a real catastrophe. "Why are you grinning?" Dudley growled at Harry who couldn't hide his mirth. "As though you had dated so many girls…" "Actually I've dated three," he replied. "Three? And who?" Dudley asked with a dark expression. "You don't know them," Harry waved. "Come to think of it, there was one of them _I_ didn't know, either…" seeing Dudley's confused and jealous expression Harry gave him the coup de grace, "but at least she was good in bed." With that he got up from the sofa and left his fuming cousin alone.   
  
  
Two days before the end of the holidays Harry received an owl from Mrs Weasley with his new schoolbooks (_we knew you couldn't go to Diagon Alley dear, so we bought them for you_). Strangely the Weasleys' owl wasn't the only one delivering him a message that day. A black owl soared through the window, dropped a message on his head and was off. Curiously Harry opened the letter that consisted of one single line: _Happy belated birthday, Harry._ Attached to the back of the letter there was a rather dark wizard photograph of a little bundle that kept slightly squirming. At first Harry had no idea what it could be, then he walked with it to the window to have a better look at it in the morning sunshine. In the light Harry could properly make out the bundle that turned out to be some sort of a swaddling cloth, from which only the tiny, bald head and two minuscule hands of a baby were poking out. The little one looked a bit like those premature infants he had sometimes seen in the News. Premature infant… that meant it had to have been born around the eighth month… The photo fell out of Harry's hands.   
  
**A/N2:** next chapter: back to the present and Grimmauld Place - Ginny will tell her story about the blackmail. Stay tuned! _Indigo Ziona_: you wrote: "curious as to how Harry's going to get Ginny pregnant". Ehm… *Agi's voice turns into a teacher-like-voice, as though talking to a five-year old*: you know, sweetie, the birds and the bees… *sorry, I couldn't leave that out, your question was just hilarious! :D* _Mistri_: who's Eric Myers? Nope, the Girl-With-No-Name isn't Ginny. _Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: glad you recovered. I'd also like to have that all-language spell cast on me, it'd be very useful :) _Wood's secret lover_: why can't you image Harry calling his daughter Daffy? I think it's sort of cute (me loves Duffy Duck!) _Myr Halcyon_: glad you couldn't resist to review :D I'm happy you find Harry more sympathetic than before. As I told back in the first A/N in the prologue, he's going to be more human in this fic, so perhaps that's what you like about him. Dunno why chapter 4 had a better flow, definitely not because of my betas, for my betas only correct my grammar (done by Michael) and little plot mistakes (done by mum), but they never make me change the flow of the story. _Bamboo Anime_: who's Sarah Mclachlan? Some actress? Nope, the Circle isn't a cult, just the Greek version of the OotP. _ruffled owl_: nope, no new scandals at Hogwarts. Some mayhem might occur at Hogwarts, but no scandal. Glad you liked the song at the beginning of chapter 4, I love Lion King. Hope you liked this lil poem at the beginning of this chapter too. _hypnotic-babe_: hopefully now you understand the Girl-With-No-Name thingie. Phaedra isn't evil, just a bit selfish. _TigHan_: truth be told I've never been to fictionpress yet, do you post your stories there under the name TigHan? As for the unknown lady… perhaps ;) No, I'm not observant, it wasn't me who realised what Vol de mort meant, I read it on some HP site. I don't even speak French, and it's in French. _Paige_: you like Phaedra? I'm glad about it :D _X-Tow-Naga_: nope, Voldie wasn't really defeated back at the end of Harry's seventh year, though many people believed that he was. Harry, of course, knows well enough that he hasn't defeated Voldie, just made him flee. More on that later. You wrote: "The-Girl-With-No-Name, well I hope Harry at least knew her name". Nope, as you see, he didn't. _sikokid_: no, Harry won't announce his return to the rest of the wizarding world. _Shadowchild1_: yeah, I think Harry has a knack for getting girls pregnant in my fics, but hey, it just shows his virility, and I LOOOOVE a virile Harry! :D :D :D *my friend and test reader Kati is nodding enthusiastically - she loves the virile Harry even more than I do. Kati, get those kinky thoughts out of your mind, bad girl!* _jennaration_: no, I think killing Harry's child wasn't as evil as making her insane. This way Harry can accept that she's no longer with him, but had she gone insane, it'd be even harder for him. Remember, when Harry got to know about Neville's parents, he thought that he was still luckier than Neville, even though his parents had died. The 'Ginny talks about Draco' part will come in next chapter. _Katrina Littlebird_: glad you like Phaedra. I like her, too. Even if H/G's child was a girl, they wouldn't name her Daphne. It'd be way too painful for Harry, IMHO. _Mage_: nope, the Girl-With-No-Name isn't Phaedra. If you're clever, now you can find out who it is. _Sparkle Tangerine_: you wrote: "it sounds like Harry shagging lots of girls". LOL. Actually my friend Kati said she was happy Harry got to shag more girls in this fic than in my trilogy. She's a little imp, my friend, she loves seeing Harry getting some fun ;) Don't worry, besides Phaedra and Mystery girl no one else has children from Harry (only Ginny, later). Actually Phaedra truly loves Harry, she isn't just possessive. And yeah, she's surely jealous, for she knows her hubby loves Ginny. No, Ginny isn't going to join the Circle. _blaubaerin_: the Daffy-Duffy duck thing was deliberate :) Don't worry, The-Girl-With-No-Name isn't an American exchange student. If you're clever, you can guess now who she is - not Ginny, because my fics never include time travel. I simply dislike time travel. _Zenon Lee_: there will be soap elements in the fic, also a lot of drama, but hopefully the fic on the whole won't be a soap. The name Phaedra comes from the Greek mythology, and also from Racine's drama called 'Phaedra'. In it Phaedra is a young queen, who falls for her stepson, Hyppolitos (if I remember his name properly). As far as I remember Hyppolitos dies, and Phaedra kills herself. No idea what will happen in book six, but I'm hoping for R/Hr and H/G romance at last. _C-chan1_: yup, I like Star Trek too, especially the Voyager series. Yes, I also thought that Harry telling about his daughter's death was even sadder than Sirius' death, for I didn't find Sirius' death sad at all. Of course I was sad afterwards, but the death in itself wasn't touching at all. I think I know what sort of a site your friend found, it's an "OotP fun-tastic innuendo list", I've read that, too. I loved how they made the word 'wand' always refer to something else ;) HP/WW? Er… who's WW? Not William (Bill) Weasley, is it? _K. C. Hunter_: glad you like the Greek mythology element, that's my fave mythology, too. There'll be a LOT of it in chapters 13-15. _Elizabeth Darcy_: then I think I'm going to disappoint you, for the girl-with-no-name happens to be the one you guessed. However, there'll be quite a few elements in the fic that will catch you off guard, even thought this one won't. As for Harry sleeping with someone in his sixth year - I can't really see it too, but it was a plot device, and it was needed for future developments. I hope that I managed to make it sound less out-of-place than you thought. You're right that he is afraid of putting someone he loves in danger, but at that time he didn't love Cho and didn't think of putting her in danger, he rather wanted to 'help' her in her great grief. As for pairing Phaedra up with someone… hmmm… you might know the fortunate guy, yeah ;) _Wizzabee_: perhaps now you can guess who the girl was. Why did Daffy die? To give me a plot-device as to why Harry would all of a sudden come back to England. Yeah, I killed a little child just for plot reasons! Bad Agi! _Mlle Katie Bell_: yep, the story WILL have happy parts. Remember the H/G pirate pic you reviewed on artisticalley? That shows a scene from chapter 14, and they both look pretty happy there, don't you think? _Hedwig55_: thanks, glad you like the pics as well :) _sweet775_: oh, please don't throw yourself out the window!!!! Then you wouldn't be able to review me anymore ;) _Purple Star Dust_: yep, I've seen the trailer, pretty good, just that song was stupid. Perhaps now you can guess who the girl was. _Altec_: I'm happy that my updates are the light at the end of the tunnel :) And yes, there will be a few chapters that don't end with cliffies, though not too many. _Inken:_ to your question on SIYE: Phaedra could find Grimmauld Place, because she has this very tricky little Tracking Charm. It's a special one that not every wizard knows about (actually only a very few know this one). I didn't name the Circle after Percy's owl, but the Greek messenger god - also god of the thieves and the travellers. He is famous of being cunning, and the Circle prides itself (or at least tries to pride itself) on being a cunning organisation. It was JKR who named the owl after this god :) Phaedra is very sad that her daughter is dead, but she is better at controlling her emotions than Harry is. As you see, Harry slept with the girl-with-no-name before he got together with Ginny. As for why didn't he shag Ginny? Well, in his sixth year he thought it'd be early for Ginny, who was only in her fifth year. And in his seventh year he already knew about the child, and it also overshadowed his relationship with Ginny, for once he never told her about the baby. As for you assuming the woman not to be Tom's great-daughter… well, surely it's not Tom's GREAT-daughter ;) _Princess Ginny_: no idea why the review button wasn't there. Perhaps ffnet hadn't loaded the site totally. _Lady Marie_: no, Hermes wasn't the god of wisdom, it's Pallas Athena (who's actually a goddess). Hermes is the messenger god, also the god of thieves and travellers. A very cunning guy in the Greek mythology. Phaedra isn't an evil bitch, but she'll try to get Harry back, and it'll have some negative results. No, Draco isn't infertile. _Salyeva_: glad you like the quotes, all chapters will have one (with the exception of this one, that doesn't have a quote but an original poem ;) _Lavendar Brown_: no, I wouldn't call Harry a man-whore, he was just a horny teenager, after all ;) You feel bad for Ginny? Then be prepared, for later on you'll feel much worse for her. This fic is a Ginny-torturing fic. Harry will suffer too, but Ginny will suffer more than him. _Any last requests_: I just named Harry's daughter Daphne, because I knew that it was a Greek name, and that there was some Daphne in the Greek mythology who died very young. As for the ring-thingie, here in Hungary wedded couples wear their rings on their right hands, at least I think so, but I'm quite confused about this :) Never been married, LOL. _manitu_charm:_ yeah, the girl-with-no-name has some relation to Voldie's daughter :) I know that Xena doesn't exist, and I also know that most episodes of Hercules have not much to do with the Greek mythology, but from a certain point of view the series still has some relation to Greek mythology, e.g. Hercules being Zeus' illegitimate son, Hercules marrying Denaira (or how do you spell it?), and most of the gods in the Hercules and Xena series come from Greek mythology (though I'm not sure that you have a goddess like Discord, perhaps she was just made up by the Americans?) _Missy_: Ginny will tell Harry about her marriage in the next chapter. _TrixieFirecracker_: LOL, this is the third site you review this fic on ;) Well, now you know that Harry hadn't cheated on Ginny when he'd slept with the Girl-With-No-Name. Phaedra won't want to let H and G have a relationship, but she won't really have a say in this. As for her ending up with a villain… who knows? ;) _Swanny_: how long till we get back to Ginny and her baby? Loooooooooong. It'll only come in chapter 23, lots of things need to happen till then. As for Voldie - you'll see him in chapter 11, as far as I remember. And after then he'll quite often appear in the fic. Also thanks to: _hi-voltage, Embyr Black, LadySiri, Punky Poet, Kit Cloudkicker, apple-pie, Sarahamanda, Hermione Weasley, RedHot911, sarah, kneh13, the-girl-named-kittie, goldenstar555_


	6. Ginny's memories

**Author's note in April, 2005:** this chapter, as many others in many of my fics has been reuploaded since it had lyrics in it that I had to delete (and I didn't trust ffnet's quick-edit).

**Chapter 6**

Ginny's memories

_August 2003, 12 Grimmauld Place_

"So, you have a child from that impostor," Ginny said.

"Yes, I do." Harry nodded, gazing out onto the street below.

"That was what you were hiding from me in your last Hogwarts year."

"Yes, that was it," he replied distractedly.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered.

Now he turned away from the street and looked at her.

"Would you have remained my girlfriend if I had told you?"

"Of course I would have!" she spluttered, looking hurt.

"I'm not sure of it, Ginny." He shook his head. "At least I wasn't sure back then. I was full of doubt, I was desperate... I was a father at seventeen, Ginny, and I just didn't know how to handle it... and to tell you the truth, I _still_ don't know how to handle it."

"But... you... you said that you wanted Daphne so much because you didn't want to lose her, _too_... didn't that other one die?"

"Oh... You think it's the child's death that I can't handle... no... that other one is alive... but she's still lost to me."

"Have you ever seen her?"

"Not in person. Just in photos," Harry replied grimly. "In the first year I got photos of her every month. Now I get them yearly, on her birthday... they are sent to me to tease me, to annoy me, to make my heart ache..." in thought he added: _and to remind me not to do anything stupid._

"But... why would someone treat you like that?" she breathed. "As her father, you have the right to see her!"

He looked away, as though afraid that she'd see something in his eyes that he'd rather keep a secret.

"Have you found out at least who the mother is?"

"Yes, I know who she was."

"_Was_?"

"Dead. Died in childbirth. Her name was Linda."

"Oh... I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not sorry for her," he grunted.

"But... but Harry!" She looked scandalised.

"Don't look daggers at me, Ginny," he replied calmly. "You know nothing about her. She deserved it."

She shook her head in disbelief. "What is it I should know in order to not feel sorry for her?"

"Nothing." He drew back from the window that closed with a snap.

She knew that the discussion was over - she must have touched such delicate points that Harry simply refused to carry on talking about the topic.

"All right." She nodded, "then just tell me: why isn't the kid with you - her father? It would be only natural to send a child to its dad if its mum died..."

"Enough of the questions, Ginny. I've told you enough already, now it's your turn."

She cringed, remembering their agreement: if he told her about the Circle and Daffy, she'd have to tell him about the forced marriage.

"Okay." She nodded. "But I'd rather not tell with words." When he raised an eyebrow with a questioning expression, she added: "You can look into my memories, if you like. But I don't think I could _tell_ you. You know how to do Legilimency, don't you?"

"I do, seen Snape do it enough times, and I've been taught about it in the Circle as well," Harry murmured. "But are you sure? Once I'm in your mind, I can see all sorts of things... even those you'd rather keep a secret."

"Besides my marriage, I have no other secrets, Harry. Unless you fear that I might glimpse something in your mind that you don't want me to see…"

"Not likely, over the last five years I've learnt how to keep my thoughts to myself. You won't see anything from my memories, but I'll see yours… so, may I proceed?"

"Yeah, go on."

He nodded and pointed his wand at her. "_Legilimens_."

In the next instant he was in Ginny's mind, Ginny's memories.

_"Your father is in my father's possession, Weasley." Draco grinned at Ginny. "And if I'm not much mistaken, he's suffering... terribly."_

Ginny's eyes narrowed. "Why are you gloating to me about it, eh? Want to see me broken?"

"No, I want to see you playing the little heroine and save your father."

"What's the price?" She gulped. "You know that we don't have much money..."

Draco let out a shrill laugh. "Money? Oh my, the Malfoys have more of it than you could possibly imagine!"

"Then? What do you want in exchange for my father's freedom?"

Draco stepped closer, regarding her with a devilish smirk. "You."

…

"Hereby, in accordance with the power bestowed upon me, I pronounce you husband and wife," said Vicar Diggle, beaming at the new couple in the Burrow's garden. "You may kiss the bride."

Ginny resolutely pressed her lips together, to make it impossible for Draco to give her a proper kiss.

After his lips touched hers, she quickly turned away from him, and the first thing that caught her eyes was Harry standing half-hidden behind a bush, looking thunderstruck. His hair was more dishevelled than ever, one of the lenses of his glasses was broken, cuts and scratches covered his dirty face, but his deep green eyes were ablaze, radiating such shock, hatred and disgust even through the broken lens, that Ginny felt a frosty hand clench at her heart.

She wanted to shout 'it's not real love, I've been forced!' and run up to him, but Draco's firm grip on her arm held her back. She cast a quick glance around on her mother and siblings, to see whether they had also noticed Harry, but it seemed that they hadn't. She looked back at the spot where she had seen Harry, but he had vanished. She wondered whether he had really been there or had it been just an illusion, had her overwrought mind been playing with her, tricking her?

…

The 'wedding party' was still in full swing at the Burrow (that meant Molly unwillingly serving Draco and Lucius meals and the Weasley brothers exchanging 'I'll kill them I swear' glances), when Amos Diggory's head appeared in the kitchen fire.

"Amos?" Mrs Weasley almost dropped the ladle in fright.

"Molly, where's Arthur?" asked the head.

"He's... I don't know," Mrs Weasley lied, blocking the Malfoys from Diggory's view, so Amos had no idea that he was giving Molly information that perhaps he shouldn't. Everyone in the Ministry was in the belief that Arthur was on holiday - at least Molly had spread this tale, not wanting to risk Arthur's life as long as he was in the Malfoys' hands.

"Then find him, Molly, as quick as possible. The Ministry has need of every single of its workers now."

"Why, what's happened?"

"There's been a battle with He Who Must Not Be Named," came the answer.

Lucius and Draco exchanged anxious glances.

"Harry Potter was involved, so we heard. Most of the Death Eaters captured by our Aurors, already on their way to Azkaban. However, Fudge is dead... and so is Dumbledore."

"Dead?" Molly breathed, clutching at her heart.

Lucius Malfoy started to fidget rather uncomfortably behind her back. He had, after all, talked himself out of Azkaban by fooling Fudge... if the Minister was dead, he might be sent back to prison now… not to mention that if the Dark Lord was still alive, he'd punish him for not being there to help him against Potter.

"Yes. Dumbledore died fighting. As for Fudge... apparently he was at the wrong place at the wrong time... now we have no Minister, and the Wizengamot is about to start their Minister-appointing meeting in a couple of minutes. Since your husband has become a member of it, he has to be present and give his vote."

"I'm sorry, Amos, I... I don't know where Arthur is," Molly stammered. "What... what about You-Know-Who? And Harry?"

"Both disappeared. We know nothing of them."

"I hope Harry's all right," Mrs Weasley whispered.

"Well, Molly, should you see Arthur, tell him to Apparate to the Ministry immediately."

"I'll tell him," she nodded nervously and Diggory's head disappeared from the fire.

When Mrs Weasley turned around, Lucius was already on his feet.

"Well, thank you for the enjoyable dinner, Molly," he said coldly. "I'd better go now. Draco, Ginny, I wish you all the happiness in the world," he added in a derisive tone and Apparated away.

…

"I wonder whether the Wizengamot managed to choose a new Minister without your father," Draco said mockingly as he guided Ginny into the 'bridal suite' of the most elegant hotel in Diagon Alley.

"When are you going to set my father free?" she demanded. "I fulfilled our agreement, married you, so it's your turn to fulfil your part of the agreement. Set dad free."

"I will. Tomorrow. After our wedding night." He grinned and she felt a wave of nausea wash over her.

"All right, then." She took a deep breath. "Let's get it over with."

"With pleasure." He reached out for her, his pupils dilated with desire.

Ginny shuddered in his embrace, then willed her thoughts to wander away from reality, away from what he was doing to her...

Harry stiffened and his eyes met Ginny's. "I think that's something I'd rather not watch."

"I'd rather not remember it, either." She nodded.

"May I carry on?"

"Of course."

_Ginny woke up next morning to find her husband next to her in the bed, deeply immersed in reading the Daily Prophet._

She shut her eyes, trying not to recall the events of the previous night, but the soreness she felt made it impossible for her. She tried to remember the dream she had had before she woke up, and suddenly realised that she had been dreaming about Harry. However, the Harry she had seen in her dream hadn't been the Harry she had loved so much - it had been the Harry she had seen in the bushes, staring at her with an accusatory expression, an expression sending her the silent message: 'Ginny, you've betrayed me!'

"Awake, are you?" Draco spoke up.

"Yes, but I wish I had died in my sleep," she murmured back.

"Why? No reason to feel miserable, dear. The Daily Prophet writes that Malfoy Manor has been raided overnight by Aurors. It seems the Wizengamot managed to elect a new Minister even without your dad, and apparently His Ministership Kingsley Shacklebolt, isn't too trusting towards my family."

"And isn't he right?" Ginny asked sarcastically.

"Anyway, they found your dad in the dungeons. He's at St. Mungo's right now."

Ginny instinctively gripped his arm. "How is he?"

"Don't worry, he survives."

"And he's free at last." She slumped back onto her pillow with a satisfied sigh.

"Yeah, free..." his voice trailed off. "Just to avoid misunderstandings, dear, you aren't expecting me to set you free too, are you?"

"I... what do you mean?" She felt a lump in her throat.

"I mean I think you expected to get divorced from me as soon as possible... oh yes, your expression reveals that I was right... but don't get your hopes up. You're my wife and will remain my wife as long as you live."

"What makes you so sure of it?" She sat up, folding her arms. "My dad's free, I can go to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and tell them that you blackmailed me into this marriage!"

"Wishful thinking, dear, yes." Draco smirked. "Sorry to disappoint you, but that will not happen."

"What do you mean?" Ginny knitted her eyebrows.

"Have you ever heard of The Fates?"

"Yes, of course, I have. They spin and cut the thread of life in Greek mythology."

"Exactly as you say. But I presume you haven't heard of The Fates Charm yet..."

Starting to be nervous, she shook her head.

"Well…" Draco put down the Daily Prophet and sprawled on his pillows lazily, "it means that if you get a hair from someone and cast this charm on it, then you hold the person's life in your hand. If you cut it, the person dies."

Seeing Ginny's appalled expression, he carried on with a very satisfied smirk. "And guess whose hair is in my possession with this evil little charm on it?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if it were mine." She gave him a patronising stare. "Last night when you were so pathetically playing the tiger, you pulled out several of my hairs. Do you do this to all your lovers? Make them bald?"

Draco, however, didn't look hurt by her belittling remark on his abilities in bed. He was still grinning.

"What makes you think I took your hair? I know that you don't value your life that much, Virginia... oops, have I said Virginia?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Get to the point, Malfoy."

"Right. So, I thought you didn't value your life enough and would perhaps risk dying... but I bet you value your father's life more..."

Ginny paled. "You don't mean... you didn't...?"

"I can assure you I did. Correction: my father did it, he put the charm on one of Arthur Weasley's pulled-out hairs, since I didn't know how to... a very rare Dark Art, you know, only a select few know about it... and, unfortunately, it has no counter curse. Like it or not, your father's life is in my hands, and if you want him to live, you've got to be an obedient little wife, Mrs Malfoy."

Harry gulped and looked at Ginny. "Why haven't you told anyone? Perhaps someone could have helped... Someone from the Order..."

She shook her head. "You haven't seen everything yet."

_"Oh... and before you get the idea of talking about The Fates Charm to people, let me tell you about another excellent little curse I put on you while you were sleeping..."_

"What?" Ginny asked irritably. She was at the end of her tether, and this asshole here was still taunting her... "Will I sprout radishes out of my ears if I tell it to anyone? Or get 'I LOVE SCREWTS' written all over my face?

"No. If the words 'The Fates Charm' leave your mouth, your tongue will get ripped out, making sure it was the last thing you ever said. In case you try and write it down, your hand will shrivel, and it'll be the last thing you ever write."

"Wonderful how much you LOVE me, my dear husband." She grimaced, trying to look like as though she didn't care, but her heart was hammering in her throat.

"Also, I believe that the Ministry will question me about the dungeons, and you will testify in my favour. You will also convince your parents and brothers to say that I had nothing to do with the kidnapping. I'm totally innocent, understood?"

She nodded blankly.

"I'm innocent or your father is dead."

"I understand, Draco."

"So that's why you didn't tell anyone..." Harry said quietly.

"Yeah. And that's why I asked you to _see_ my memories instead of telling you. No one else I know can do Legilimency, except Snape, but I didn't trust him to let him see things like that..."

"Wonder why?" Harry allowed himself a faint grin. "Say, have you ever tried to look for that cursed hair?"

"Of course I did," she sighed. "But never succeeded. Draco must've hidden it well."

"If at all…"

"What do you mean by that?" She knitted her eyebrows.

"I mean, it could be a bluff. And Malfoys have always been good at lying…"

"It has occurred to me too, but… I don't think it's just a bluff. I wish it were, though…"

He looked contemplative. "So, let's assume that this Fates Charm is real… It sounds really nasty, you know... but I can't imagine that there's no counter curse... there has to be a way to end its effect..."

"But where could it be found?" she asked dejectedly.

"Where? In Greece, I suppose."

"Greece?"

"Why, the charm originates from ancient Greek mythology, doesn't it? I say we've got to go back to the roots."

"_We_?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Of course we, Ginny. You aren't allowed to utter the charm's name or you'll be cursed... unless Malfoy was bluffing, but I wouldn't take chances with him... So, since I'm the only one who knows about this, I'm the only one who can help. And I know Greece."

"Won't it be risky?"

"My life has never been anything else but risky. I'm not afraid of anything... well, almost anything, besides, nothing would make me happier than to annoy Malfoy."

Ginny grinned at him. "Thanks, Harry."

"All right, then it seems we're going to Greece… be sure to pack summer clothes, sun hats, suntan lotion and sunglasses. By the way, can you Apparate?"

"Er… no, not really." She shook her head.

"Why not?"

Ginny turned away from him embarrassedly. "By the time I turned seventeen, I was already Draco's wife and he didn't want me to learn to Apparate. Actually I didn't even finish school."

"What?" he gasped. "Why?"

"Why, why, because he wanted me at home, as an obedient little wife… when I protested that I wanted to finish my studies, he hired me a private teacher, but… it wasn't the same. I wasn't taught Defence Against the Dark Arts or Charms or Transfiguration. Only History of Magic and Ancient Runes… I think Draco feared that if I reached an advanced enough level in defence, I might start to fight him, even with that terrible charm endangering Dad's life… or if I learnt Charms or Transfiguration, I might get the idea to turn him into a cockroach…"

"Would serve him right," he remarked.

"… and I wasn't allowed to study Potions, in case I tried to poison him… Draco's become pretty paranoid, you know… always orders a house-elf to taste his meals and drinks before he does."

"Paranoid Malfoy…" Harry seemed contemplative. "I wish I could use that against him, to pay him back for all the sorrows he's given you."

A sad little smile spread on her face and she took his hands. "Thank you for your understanding, Harry."

"Not at all, Ginny. I'm just returning the favour. In my sixth year you were the only one who understood me. Now it seems I'm destined to be the only one to understand you. We've been both through a lot, and no one understood us… we need each other."

"No, Harry, now it's just me needing you. Why would you need me?"

"Because you're the only one who ever understood me… and for the time being what I need most is to be understood."

"Then you can count on me," she said gently. "But if you want me to fully understand you, then you'll have to open up fully, stop hiding things…"

He looked down at their intertwined hands. "That might also happen one day, Ginny. I'm just not ready yet."

"I'll be patient," she replied quietly, getting up from her armchair and sitting down next to him. Now they were sitting pressed up to each other, each feeling the warmth of the other's body, feeling the other's heartbeat…

Suddenly Harry stood up as though sensing/seeing something, and sure enough, in the next instant the door flung open to admit three red-headed men, followed by a pink-haired figure. Two less colourful figures brought up the rear.

"You weren't expecting us to let you have Harry all to yourself, little sister?" Fred said cheerfully.

"Hasn't Mum held you back?" Ginny asked.

"Tried. But we convinced her to calm down," replied Ron.

"Yeah, she's lying down a bit…" added George.

"…in a full-body bind…" Grinned Fred.

"Honestly, doing something like that to your mother," Hermione tutted. "Welcome back, Harry."

"Yeah, welcome back, mate." Ron nodded.

"Wotcher, Harry," added Tonks. "Lucky that Remy and I were just visiting Hermione when the boys came and said you were back."

"We wouldn't have missed the opportunity to see you," Lupin added, beaming. Harry didn't remember when he had seen this man so happy before… perhaps never. Then he spotted something glinting on the werewolf's ring finger, and also on Tonks'.

"Are you two married?"

Remus and Tonks nodded. "Two weeks already!"

"Congratulations!" Harry gave the Lupins each a big hug.

"Hey, we don't get one?" the Weasley twins shouted.

"'Course you do." Harry hugged them too, finally getting to his two best friends.

Ron was grinning at him in a 'nice-to-see-you-again-but-where-the-hell-have-you-been?' sort of way, and Hermione had tears in her eyes.

Harry pulled them to himself, the three of them meeting in a tight embrace. When they parted, Hermione was openly sobbing, and Ron was grinning even more stupidly.

"Good to see you again, mate."

"Good to see you, too. Hermione, don't cry!"

"Don't cry?" She sounded hysterical. "You left five years ago without a single word, Harry! We didn't know whether you were dead or alive! And then you just turn up out of the blue and expect me not to cry!"

"Oh, Herm." Harry pulled her into a new hug and she sobbed into his shoulder.

"Hey, okay, enough of this!" Ron gently peeled his girlfriend's arms off their friend.

"Jealous, Ron?" Harry smirked.

"Noooo." Ron waved embarrassedly.

"But of course he is," Hermione replied, sniffing. "Jealousy is something he hasn't managed to grow out of yet."

"Not when you're still exchanging novel-length letters with Vicky and hugging Harry like that!" Ron snapped.

Harry rolled his eyes, but he seemed to be enjoying the fight between his two best friends. Just like in the old times…

"Really." He turned to the Lupins," What's your name now that you're married, Tonks?"

"It's still Tonks, got used to it too much to part with it," the woman shrugged.

At this moment a loud squeak came from the corridor, a squeak that Harry found rather familiar.

"Buckbeak? Have you brought him, too?"

"Yeah." Remus nodded. "You know, ever since my old friend died, I've been taking care of him. We simply couldn't find it in our hearts to leave him at home. Also, we thought you'd be happy to see him."

"Of course, I'm letting him in," replied Harry and was just about to open the door for the Hippogriff when George's voice rent the air:

"Attention, please!"

All of them turned in the twins' direction to see a huge box in their hands (it was so big that all their four hands were needed to carry it - Harry had no idea how they had brought it here without him noticing). The package had a huge red ribbon tied around it.

"What's this?" asked Harry.

"It's a Welcome-Back-and-also-Happy-Belated-Birthday-Present from us," Fred said with a wide grin. "I hope you don't mind getting only one present instead of two?"

"I'm not Dudley," Harry replied as the twins placed the huge box on the table.

"Harry, no…" Hermione whispered, but Ron hushed her, his eyes glinting in a mischievous way.

Ginny, knowing the twins, cast an anxious glance at Harry, but he didn't seem to notice and also seemed to have forgotten not to trust Gred and Forge.

Harry bent down, examining a box. "It's ticking," he perceived. "Let me guess: a bomb?"

The twins glanced at each other sourly, then back at Harry. "You're no fun, mate. We wanted to surprise you."

"Well, you've managed to. I've never got a bomb for my birthday. Thanks." And with that, he proceeded to open the package.

"Harry, don't…" Hermione breathed.

In the next instant the box exploded, covering all of them, the furniture, the walls and the window with some lurid pink goo.

For seconds no one spoke - Harry took off his glasses, his face also pink, only two oval patches around his eyes were goo-free. He licked one of his fingers.

"Hey, that's an éclair!" He grinned, his teeth shining in the middle of the pink mass.

"'Course, it's our latest development, Enormous Exploding Éclair," explained George. "We produce them in small boxes and the buyer just has to cast a simple engorgement charm on them before surprising the victim. A fine birthday present for those with a bit of a sense of humour."

"Brilliant. And delicious." Harry started licking his whole left hand.

"Not to mention that it looks great," added Tonks, examining her éclair-cream-covered image in a small pocket-mirror. "What do you think, Remy, is this my colour? I think it's definitely becoming. Better than violet and bubblegum pink… this is just between those two shades."

"I love you in all colours, Tonks." Remus smiled gently at his wife and bent down to kiss her. "… and in all flavours, too."

"You hear that? Now I'm Remus Lupin's All-Flavour Tonks," she remarked with a lopsided grin.

Harry didn't remember when he had laughed so heartily for the last time… it must have been when Daphne had still been alive…

He shook his head (a huge amount of éclair dripping from his locks), chasing the sad thoughts away, at least for today.

"You know, you deserved to have an éclair explode into your face," Ron said, licking pink goo from the sleeve of this robes.

"Well, having an éclair explode in my face is much better than having _Mimbulus mimbletonia_ doing the same." Harry shrugged.

"Anyway, you deserved it. You disappeared, just like that, without a single word, Harry!" Ron said in a slightly reproachful tone.

"I know and I'm sorry."

"I do hope you're sorry!" Hermione said, trying to look serious, but covered in éclair-cream from head to toe she didn't manage. "And I hope you are going to explain yourself."

Heaving a sigh, Harry wiped his face, pink dollops dripping onto the floor.

"H… harry!" Hermione pointed at his forehead. "Your scar's gone!"

"Not gone, just concealed," Harry responded, squinting at Ginny, who knew how hard it had been for him to tell her about these things, and suspected that he wasn't in the mood to relive it again for the others.

Suddenly, she looked around to see the others looking petrified, all of them standing in the position they had been when… when… when _what_ had happened?

"Don't worry, I just froze them in time," Harry said.

"You did what?" Ginny breathed.

"I made time stop for them. See?" he pointed at Remus and Tonks who were cuddling in the background, pursing up their lips, ready for a kiss. "Aren't they lovely?"

"But… but they look like some statues! As though they were petrified!"

"That's how they're supposed to look when you freeze them in time."

"Why… did you do that?

"Because they were asking too much. Also, we don't have time to answer them, we've got to go."

"Yes, but… _how_ did you do it?" She gulped, frightened. "Your skills really scare me, Harry… you seem to have become extremely powerful."

"Am not," he waved indignantly. "All the weird things you've seen from me - shutting up Mrs Black, seeing through the back of my head and the armchair, stopping time for people - are things I've learned in the Circle. Actually, my special vision isn't even a learnt skill, just a complex charm cast on my glasses that can now function as a rear-view mirror as well. I'm not special, Ginny. Never have been."

"How can you say such a thing? You've always been special."

"Just because of my damn scar and my mother's sacrifice. Perhaps the only special thing about me is that I'm allegedly destined to do away with Voldemort or get killed by him… but I don't think it'll ever happen…"

"What? You killing him or he killing you?"

"Me killing him."

She furrowed her brow, sizing him up in a bewildered way. "I'm getting hopelessly confused, Harry. You don't mean he has a greater chance to kill you than you to kill him?"

"That's exactly what I mean," he replied, giving her a 'don't-ask' stare. So she didn't ask.

For a minute neither of them spoke, the only noise was the éclair-goo flowing down their robes, hitting the floor in quiet splashes.

"What we were talking about when they arrived…" he spoke up in the awkward silence, "I'm going to help you, Ginny. Or… at least I'll try."

"I can't Apparate to Greece, you know," she reminded him.

"I know," with a swish of his wand, he woke up the Lupins.

As though nothing had happened, as though they hadn't been frozen in time at all, their lips met in a smacking kiss, and they only stopped snogging when Harry loudly cleared his throat.

"Wha…?" Remus reluctantly abandoned his wife's inviting lips and looked around. "What happened here?"

"Don't worry, they'll be all right," Harry replied, jerking his head in the direction of the Weasley boys' and Hermione' statue. "I'd like to ask a favour from you, Remus."

"Fire away, Harry." Tonks grinned, clearly enjoying her sugar-coated appearance.

"I'd like to borrow Buckbeak."

"Er… of course. But may I ask why?" Lupin enquired.

"Well… I'd rather not reveal it just now… but trust me, nothing devious."

"All right, you can borrow him, but bring him back in one piece!"

Tonks rolled her eyes. "Remy loves that Hippogriff as though it were his son."

"I can't help being such good father-material," her husband said.

"What are you hinting at, eh?" she nudged him playfully.

"Nooothing." He smiled innocently.

"Well then, thank you, Remus," Harry said and flicked his wand once more. The Lupins froze again. "We have a transport, milady. Are you ready for the journey?"

"I haven't brought anything with me," Ginny protested. "No summer clothes, no suntan lotion…"

"We'll buy them all at Athens. I know a lovely little shopping street that opens at the foot of the Acropolis."

With that he was already ushering her out of the room full of pink, petrified people.

"But how are they going to…?"

"…wake up? Don't worry, I used the temporary version of the time-freezing charm. They'll wake up in about half an hour. Hi, Beaky."

The Hippogriff standing in the corridor gave them a questioning stare.

"Oh, yeah." Harry bowed slightly. Now Buckbeak seemed to have recognised him and also bent his head a bit. "Would you mind taking us to Greece, old boy?"

* * *

"So Harry, I'm awaiting your expl…" Hermione said, waking up from her statue-state. "Harry?"

"Where is he?" Ron looked around. "And where's Ginny?"

"Heh, bet she's eloped with him!" Fred clasped his hands together. "The little tyke!"

"Oh, come on, Fred, what makes you think they eloped?" frowned Hermione, pointing her want at herself: "_Scourgify_!"

"Well, they disappeared together, haven't they?" smirked George.

"Yes… and I believe they've taken Buckbeak with them," Remus added.

"But when?" Hermione knitted her eyebrows. "Just a second ago they were here, and now they're gone… _when_ did they leave?"

Everyone exchanged 'who knows?' glances as the door burst open.

"You know, Harry, it's really…" a black-haired woman appeared but stopped in the doorframe. "Who the hell are you?"

"Who the hell are _you_?" asked the twins in unison.

"I'm Harry's wife."

"Harry's _what_?"

"Uh-oh… this is getting more and more confusing," Hermione muttered.

"And how," Ron added with a grimace.


	7. Falaf Alley

**A/N:** I'm in a terrible mood now. Actually I didn't even want to update today, for I felt (and still feel) like sh*t, but then I thought that at least my dear readers should feel better than I. The reason for my terrible mood? Yesterday I finished writing my stupid diploma and today I took it printed out to have it bound, so that I could hand it in the college this week. And what happened tonight? I got a call from the communications department of my temporary workplace that I shouldn't get the diploma bound yet, for they'd like to suggest some changes. Why couldn't they say this just one f*cking day earlier???? So, I have to go to meet the communications director tomorrow, and rewrite the diploma, print it out again (in three copies!) and take it to the bookbinders again. I feel like shouting Avada at myself (and at certain other people as well). Please, wish me good luck to be able to finish this stupid thing tomorrow and be able to hand in my diploma before the deadline expires! And sorry for the bad language, but I'm really beside myself.  
Okay, onto the real author's note: you asked whether the next stop would be Greece. Well, not exactly - I'm a patriot, so I couldn't leave out the chance to let Harry and Ginny visit my country. To help you imagine what Harry and Ginny were seeing of Budapest, I put a link of a Budapest-photo (showing the Chain Bridge) into the art-link-section in my bio. Go, check it out :)  
This is pretty much a build-up chapter, please, bear with me!   
  


Chapter 7

**Falaf Alley**

  
_"It is a suicide to be abroad."_  
(Samuel Beckett)   
  
"You know I've never been abroad, except for that one occasion when my family visited Bill in Egypt," Ginny said, resting her eyes on the thousands of little orange lights dancing on the dark surface of the river Danube. She and Harry had travelled on Buckbeak's back till sundown and decided to stop for the night so that the Hippogriff could gather its strength for the rest of the journey. Now Buckbeak was crouching under Harry and Ginny's table on the Fisherman's Bastion - Harry had shrunken him to a minuscule size so that they could carry him into the town without waking the Muggles' suspicion. The Hippogriff certainly had been Disillusioned. "Then a bit of travelling was really overdue," Harry replied, taking a sip of the famous Tokay wine. "Yes," she smiled. "And Budapest is really lovely… for example that bridge over there… it looks like as thought it had been constructed of little whitish pearls…" "You mean the Chain Bridge? Yes, it's lovely." "How do you know Budapest so well, Harry?" she asked curiously. "I don't know it well, just been here once, trying to round up a member of the Ukrainian Wizarding Maffia. The bloke wanted to smuggle Ukranian Ironbellies into the country." "And did you catch him?" "No. Phaedra did." "Oh… Phaedra," she said, looking slightly dispirited. "By the way, what will become of her now?" "She'll follow us, I presume," he shrugged. "Follow us?" Ginny blinked. "Of course… Told you she wasn't the type to give upon me easily." "But… but how can she follow you?" "The Tracking Charm that still connects me to her," Harry replied. "But since it's getting weaker and weaker every day, I think she'll need a bit of time to find me." "But… what if she still finds us? Will she prevent us from… you know what?" "… from ending the effect of The Fates Charm? No idea. But don't worry, she'll always be some days behind us. By the time she gets to Hungary we'll already be in Greece. By the time she could catch up with us, we'll have set you free, Ginny," he gave her an encouraging smile. However, she didn't really seem encouraged. "And what about my husband?" "You said he had left for weeks," he pointed out. "By the time he gets back to Malfoy Manor, you'll be free from him… hopefully." "I'd like to be an optimist like you, Harry," she sighed. "I'm no optimist at all," he answered. "I don't have much of a reason to look at life with optimism, but I do believe that your case can be solved." At this moment a dark-skinned man dressed in red waistcoat, holding a violin stepped up to them. "Akarja-e naccsád hogy elhúzzam a nótáját?" he asked. "What?" Ginny looked at Harry. "He's asking whether you'd like him to play something for you." "Oh, tell him no, thanks." Harry politely sent the gypsy musician away, then turned back to Ginny. "This reminds me that you need the all-language charm." He furtively glanced around to check that no one was looking at them. Now he realised that they must have been sitting there so long that all the other guests had departed without them noticing, so now they were the only ones left on the terrace-restaurant of the Fisherman's Bastion. He pointed his wand at Ginny: "_Pange Lingua_! Done. Now you'll understand all human languages and whatever you say in English, everyone will understand it in their own language." With that Harry reached out for his spoon and carried on ladling his goulash soup. "So delicious! Much better than the one I ate at the Yule ball when Dumbledore started talking about himself finding a magnificent collection of chamberpots…" he looked up from his soup to see her eyeing him in a rather peculiar fashion. "What?" "I was just thinking," she replied softly. "At the Yule ball I was dancing with Neville nearby when I heard the fake Moody tell you that you had nice socks and you said you had got them from Dobby… and it occurred to me: if Moody could see through your robes, could he see through the female students' clothes as well? And now… you have this special sight… can you see through clothes?" Some sort of embarrassed grimace appeared on Harry's face. "Well… I could, I if wanted to. I just have to concentrate on _wanting_ to do so. So don't worry, I'm not looking under your clothes all the time." "Not all the time?" she gasped. "Well that's a relief!" Harry held up his hands. "Hey, hey, that's not what I meant! I mean… let's rephrase it: I'm not doing it unless I feel like… er, wrong again, eh?" he pursed his lips. "Okay, Ginny, I haven't done it yet. Honest. I admit that at first when this charm on my glasses was new, I did occasionally check out some girls… but which bloke wouldn't?" Seeing Ginny's sour expression, he put down his spoon. "Waiter, please! I'd like to settle the bill!"   
  
  
Half an hour later Ginny was sitting in the hall of a two-star hotel, idly fondling the Disillusioned and shrunken Buckbeak on her lap. "At last," she rose to her feet as she saw Harry return from the Reception. "I can barely keep my eyes open. Beaky's dozy, too, aren't you, Beaky?" But the Hippogriff didn't answer - he had fallen asleep in her arms. Harry guided Ginny upstairs. "You know, after that luxurious dinner I thought you'd find us a better place for the night," she remarked sharply, still miffed by the thought of him being able to see through her clothes. "Sorry, ran out of Muggle money. Don't think I wouldn't have been happier in the Hilton or the Intercontinental, but be happy that we got this room at all." "We? In the plural?" she stopped in her stride. "This room? In singular?" "Well," Harry tried to look apologetic, "they didn't have two vacant rooms, just one." He opened the door of room number 114 and motioned her inside. "You can have the bed, I'll bunk down on the sofa."   
  
  
After a nice warm shower Ginny nestled herself under the covers of the bed wearing only her camisole. She hadn't had time to pack clothes for the journey - after vanishing the éclair-cream off themselves she and Harry had immediately jumped on Buckbeak and left Britain to be able to escape before Phaedra decided to came back down from the room she had chosen at 12 Grimmauld Place. She was listening to Harry's even breathing coming from the direction of the couch. Controversial feeling were building in her - she was upset that she had had to leave London so quickly and without being able to say good-bye to her parents, but she was elated by the thought that this journey might end her misery and set her free. She was angry with Harry for his cockiness, vague answers and secretiveness concerning certain topics, but she couldn't help but feel sorry for him - he had obviously gone through much more and much worse things than she had. She wanted to be as far from Harry as possible instead of having to share a room with him, but something deep down also made her wish Harry hadn't been sleeping on the sofa, but in the bed, next to her.   


* * * * *

  
Draco was sleeping in another bed, next to another woman in far-off Great Britain. It was already three in the morning when he got woken up by an owl tapping at the window. "Wha…?" he blinked, rubbing his eyes. The woman next to him groaned in her sleep as he climbed out of the bed and padded to the window, still half-asleep. "What the heck do you want?" he murmured at the owl and let it in. As soon as the owl had dropped its message on Draco's head, it took off and soared out of sight. "What is it, Draco?" came a sleepy voice from under the blanket. "Dunno," he growled, cursing the unknown person who had sent him a message at such an unholy time. "Go back to sleep, Pansy." With a yawn he dropped himself on the bed and groped for his wand to get some light.   
_Dear Mr Malfoy_, he read with bleary eyes. _I consider it my duty to warn you that your wife has just eloped with my husband._ Suddenly Draco felt wide awake, his eyes almost popping out at the last sentence: _If you wish to find her, contact me at the Leaky Cauldron, Phaedra Potter_ "P…Potter?" Draco breathed. "What's that about Potter?" said Pansy. "Isn't the bloke long dead?" "Obviously not," he grunted. "But he'll soon wish he were."   


* * * * *

  
"Could you at least explain to me why we couldn't go by Floo or a Portkey?" Ginny asked irritably, clutching at Harry's midsection as they were crossing the air above Macedonia on Buckbeak's back. She was angry with him for not having secured her a separate bedroom, and even angrier for having treated her like thin air once they were sharing a room. Not that she would have expected him to hurl himself at her at once, given that he had recently lost a daughter and with the loss and grief filling his heart surely flirting couldn't be the first thing on his mind, but… she couldn't help feeling annoyed - he wouldn't even look at her in the morning when she was wearing nothing but a camisole… _She_ had given him quite a look in the morning… she had never seen him in nothing but a pair of boxers, and had to admit that she felt a weird back flip in her stomach at his sight. He wasn't particularly muscular, never had been, but he no longer was as skinny as she remembered him being - perhaps Phaedra had been a good enough cook to fatten him up a bit, Ginny thought bitterly. Also she couldn't help noticing what a nice tan he had - he must have acquired it in Greece. She wondered whether she'd also look like that after their journey ends, or would her sensitive skin rather become red and sore? "We couldn't have gone by Floo," Harry replied, "because Greek wizards don't use it at all. You know, pretty hot place, Greece. They don't really need fireplaces and those few who have one, don't have it connected to others'. Also the Greeks aren't too fond of Portkeys. Once, when they were besieging Troy, the Trojan wizards got this funny idea of sending them Portkeys disguised as treasure - they made the Greeks believe that they were trying to smuggle a cart full of treasure out of Troy to save it from the besiegers, the Greeks caught the cart, and were already happily dividing the booty among themselves when the Portkeys activated and they found themselves somewhere in the Antarctic. Ever since, Greek wizards have lost their liking for Portkeys and arranged a charm, which has never been revoked, to prevent Portkeys operating into or out of Greece. But at least the remainder of the Greek army found a way to get back at the Trojans and built that wooden horse of theirs."   
  
After half a day of flying they reached Athens. It was already sundown when Harry made the Disillusioned Buckbeak start to descend near the Acropolis. At this time there were few stragglers around, most of the Muggle tourist groups had already left, only some couples were sitting on the stone steps that lead up to the Parthenon. "Best place for dates around," Harry whispered to Ginny, pointing at the couples cuddling beneath them, gazing at the glorious sunset. With a thud their Hippogriff touched down on the ground, behind the temple. Harry lifted the Disillusionment Charm from Ginny and himself, but not from Buckbeak. "Beautiful," the young witch said admiringly, looking up at the huge ancient building. "The Greeks were really great architects, weren't they?" "Yeah, you have to give it to them - they were." "Were all their buildings so white?" "No," he shook his head, approaching some bushes behind the temple. "Actually their temples were brightly coloured, this one here, too. You know, covered with all sorts of paintings, but the colours have faded over the centuries. Well, here we are." "Where?" she blinked, looking at the bushes in front of them. Instead of answering, Harry squinted around to make sure that no one was watching and entered the shrubbery, followed by the bewildered Ginny. Camouflaged by the bushes there was a single piece of stone that looked like a statue of a pretty woman. "Muggles can't see it, otherwise they would long ago have put her into their museum," Harry told Ginny over his shoulder and tapped the statue with his wand twice. Suddenly the stone statue sprang aside to reveal a cobblestone street that hadn't been there before. As though the street had opened from thin air, it seemed to be surreal to Ginny, much more surreal than Diagon Alley, yet it was there. "Hello, Dite," Harry smiled at the pretty statue. "Hi, Dean," the statue beamed at him in a coquettish sort of way. "Have a nice stay." "Thanks, Dite," he replied and ushered Ginny and Buckbeak into the street ahead. As soon as her feet touched the first cobblestone, Ginny looked back to see no statue or bushes anywhere, but a huge board with Greek letters that strangely she could interpret:   


_Welcome to Falaf Alley, built in 578 B.C. by Nikias the greatest Greek wizard cook ever! Best gyros restaurants at the end of the street, mousakas, kalamares and mbifteki everywhere else. Buy your wands at Agisitos', your brooms at Kalidermos', all sorts of potions and poisons at Aesculapius' (open 24 hours), everything else in the supermarket!_

  
Harry looked back at Ginny reading the board with her mouth agape. "It's weird at first to be able to read and understand all languages, I know the feeling." "It's… it's amazing, Harry!" she breathed. "I understood that statue, too… Dite, or who." "It's short for Aphrodite," he replied. "Nice lady, very friendly." "A bit too friendly, isn't she?" Ginny grimaced. "By the way, why did she call you Dean?" "Told you that sometimes I needed to use pseudonyms," he shrugged and jerked Ginny out of the way of a wizard on a moped. "What the…?" Ginny gaped at the receding figure of the wizard. "A moped???" "Yeah, everyone's using mopeds in Greece, even eighty-year-old grannies. Wizards, too. You know, using Muggle vehicles is trendy around here. Really, really groovy." "But… aren't they ashamed of using Muggle things?" enquired the young witch, who knew well enough what most wizards in Great Britain thought of her father because of his Muggle mania. Most of them thought Arthur was nutty and they would rather have died than to resort to using Muggle stuff. Such things were simply beneath their dignity. "No. This is Southern Europe, Ginny, here people are much friendlier, much more outgoing and open than in the far north. You couldn't find a racist witch or wizard among the Greeks. Well… that's because you couldn't even find a pureblood witch or wizard here, they're so mixed. Did you know for instance that the first Greeks were mostly fair-haired and blue eyed? Now look around and show me a Greek with such looks. Bet you won't find one. They've mixed with other nations, mostly with Arabs so much that their average looks are black hair and dark eyes now. The same stands for the magical folks." "I wish it could be like this in England… no racism," she sighed, but her sigh got suppressed by the rumble of her stomach. "I presume a nice dinner is in order," Harry remarked. "Come, let's got to Nikias', the best around here." "The gyros specialist?" asked Ginny, remembering what the legend on the board said. "The descendant of the gyros specialist," Harry corrected her. "Nikias the first lived 2600 years ago… but ever since he won the first Greek cookery contest, all his descendants have been naming their firstborn sons after him. The current owner of the restaurant is Nikias the seventy first." Harry led Ginny through Falaf Alley that she found really friendly with the little cafeterias and taverns on both sides of it, typical Greek music filtering out of them. Ginny jumped as she heard a mighty crash coming out of a tavern they passed by. "Oh, just someone dancing syrtaki," Harry told her, and seeing her confused expression, he explained: "they tend to smash their glasses when dancing the syrtaki. 'Course the wizard restaurant owners are happier with the syrtaki dancers than the Muggles - they can say _Reparo_." At the end of the street Harry paused before a building, cast the shrinking charm on Buckbeak (who was still Disillusioned) and entered Nikias' Gyros Tavern with Ginny. The place was very cosy, smelled strongly of garlic and everything in it was blindingly white, except for the tablecloths that were white-blue checked. From a friendly little fountain in one corner, water came splashing into a small white pool. Since it was past dinnertime, the restaurant was empty. "Lucky it's open till midnight," said Harry. "Hello, Nik." "Hi, Colin," replied Nikias who was a portly little man with a wide grin. "Nice to see you again. And who's this charming lady, eh?" he bowed slightly in Ginny's direction, then leant over to Harry to half-whisper to him: "Much prettier than the last one you brought here." Nikias handed them the menu and left with a jovial smile. Ginny sat down with an eyebrow arched at Harry. "So, _Colin_, what sort of women have you brought here before?" Harry waved. "No one of any importance. Let's have a look at the menu, shall we?" She nodded, somewhat miffed that he hadn't satisfied her curiosity. "Mousakas…" she read out, "what's mousakas?" "Some stuff made of aubergine and ground meat baked into pasta." "And kalamares?" "Squid filled with rice and ewe-cheese." "Ew," she commented. "I suggest you try the gyros, that's what Nik's famous of, after all." "And what's Aristotle's Favourite?" she asked, looking at the menu. "I wouldn't want to try it if I were you," he replied. "Why?" she pressed. "What's that?" "Camel." "Camel?" she gasped. "You must be kidding." "Am not. The great Aristotle's favourite meal was camel." Seeing Ginny's disgusted face he had to chuckle. "That's still loads better than what people used to eat in ancient Sparta…" "How very true," chimed in Nikias who had returned to take the order. "Those blokes used to mix pig's blood with salt and vinegar and call it 'soup'." At Ginny's grimace the restaurateur continued enthusiastically: "The people of Athens had quite a low opinion of the Spartan cuisine. They used to say 'the Spartans are bragging about being the bravest nation in the world. Well, they must be right, if they dare eat what they cook.' Also, my ancestor Nikias the first always said that 'it's not surprising that the Spartans are so willing to die on the battlefield, death can only be better than eating their horrible dishes.' Well, have you chosen, Colin?" "Er, yeah," Harry said. "Two gyroses, please, Nik." "Best choice, Colin, best choice," the owner said and left for the kitchen. "Now perhaps we could talk about my… case," Ginny said as Nikias was out of earshot. "I take it you haven't brought me to Greece just to entertain me with horror stories of the Spartans, have you? You said here we'd find a way to free me." "Well, yeah," he said heavily. "At least I was hoping to find something here that might help." "And may I know where we are going to start our search?" But Harry didn't reply. He stiffened for a second, then rolled his eyes with an expression 'not this again' on his face. Ginny had no idea what had happened - all she saw was a thin, slightly loony-looking chap walk into the tavern. Harry's back was turned on the door, but he might have seen it with his special, 360 degree vision. "Aha! Dudley Dursley!" the chap yelled. "Spiro," Harry turned around. "How did you recognise me from behind?" "That untidy mess you have for hair is unmistakable," replied the bloke through gritted teeth and quickly dug his hand into his waistcoat, jerking out his wand. Ginny gaped at Harry who was sitting on his chair lazily, seemingly not shaken by having a wand pointed at him. "Ah, Ginny, let me introduce you Spiridion Papafotiu who's here to kill me."   
  
**A/N2**: Pange Lingua means "Tell, O my tongue"; the first words of a Latin hymn by St Thomas Aquinas, the first words of which in the English version run "Now, my tongue, the mystery telling..." (thanks to Michael for this information!:) _Janne Richardson_: the Addams family reference was the bomb-in-the-present. Fester Addams got such a present from his evil wife who wanted to kill him with the bomb. _Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: me, too. I'd rather have him as a friend (or lover;) _Wood's secret lover_: I hate Fudge, too, that's why I killed him :D I didn't like Dumbledore in OotP either. Most of the fic is set from August 2003 till June 2004, with some flashbacks to 1996-1998. Yep, omnia vincit amor :D No, I wasn't a moody teenager, I was a very peaceful one, unlike any other ;) Yeah, there's at least 15 years between Tonks and Remus, but I think they'd make a cute couple (then again, I love the Harry/Tonks ship as well, which is even weirder;) The baby's name is Brian, I think, but I haven't written about the christening yet, it'll be in the final chapter (if it will be mentioned at all, and I'm not sure about it). I haven't seen a single éclair yet, but let's assume that wizards have pink éclairs as well :) _Hedwig55_: yep, Ginny's child is from Harry. Draco has come back now, as you've seen. _gatsu87645:_ I'm still tweaking the story, so I'm not going to post it any quicker - I think it's quick enough, I post a new chapter every 5-6 days, while most fanfic authors update once in every two months. Glad you like the fic :) _Shadowchild_: Voldie boy isn't in Greece, what made you think he was there????? As for your other question: yep, obviously. _Elfy19_: of course I remember you :) I don't really think it was Wormtail who overheard the discussion, I just decided to make him be the one in this fic (actually I rather think it had been Mundungus, but I didn't want to put him into the story). No, the Girl-With-No-Name isn't the baby, but the fake Cho. I don't have anything against gays, but Draco still looked like one in that pic, and I think he shouldn't look like that. Why didn't Harry find his daughter? Well, because she'd been well hidden from him. Yeah, the fake Cho is who you think she is. _Black Ice_: the reunion part was needed to give Harry and Ginny an opportunity to borrow Buckbeak. As for Tonks calling Remus Remy - I can imagine her call her hubby various nicknames, IMHO she's that type. But I might be wrong, of course… _Lavender Brown_: why wouldn't Cho still be a virgin? She was only 17 in chapter 5, after all, and I doubt she'd had a chance to shag Cedric before he died, she'd only been 15 back then. See, Draco didn't need to come back to Malfoy Manor to get to know about Ginny 'eloping' with Harry. _Tap Dancing Widow_: yes, the other daughter will have a huge role in the fic. The references were: the Addams family one was Harry getting a 'bomb'. Fester Addams got one from his wife. The Enemy reference was Vicar Diggle. _X-Tow-Naga_: /p> was a mistyped html tag that I didn't notice. LOL, you're probably right about Dudley's worst memories ;) Yes, the girl's aim was to get pregnant. Definitely. I didn't really consider Parvati as Harry's date… at least he hadn't wanted to go with her, he just had to. You'll find out Linda's family name in chapter 19, no sooner ;) You got the Greatest Enemy reference! Albus died fighting Voldie, since no one else could have killed him. Yeah, Ginny does have a backup hand, but I know it from experience that writing with your left hand sucks. I barely can. No, Ginny didn't tell anyone she'd seen Harry in the bushes on the night of her wedding. _hypnotic-babe_: because Ginny's no murderer, she's too nice for that. _Lourdes_: bingo, the title comes from Have yourself a merry little Christmas :) Are you the same Lourdes who lives in the Dominican Republic and used to go by the name Red Ridding Hood, or are you another Lourdes? _TaMaraR_: nope, Draco won't make things easy for them. _kneh13_: there's a site called FictionAlley, and schnoogle is a part of it. The url is w w w. schnoogle. com (I had to write it with spaces, otherwise ffnet would have stripped the url). Normally there aren't any spaces in this url. Go and check out that site, it's great. The only thing I don't like about it is that most fics there are H/Hr, D/G and H/D, there are barely any H/G fics. _C-chan1:_ finally I've seen Finding Nemo! Loved it, very cute movie! My fave character was Senilla, the blue fish (was she called Senilla in English too? I saw the movie in Hungarian). Dunno what ffnet screwed up in the previous chapter, but this is how it should have been:  
_"Would you have remained my girlfriend if I had told you?" **(Harry's talk)**  
"Of course I would have!" she spluttered, looking hurt. **(Ginny's talk)**  
"I'm not sure of it, Ginny," he shook his head. **(Harry's talk)**_  
At least this is how I wrote it. If it appeared in another way, then it must have been ffnet's fault. Sorry, but Dumbledore is really dead. Yes, the Enemy reference was Vicar Diggle. I have seen quite a lot of reality shows, but I have only heard of Queer Eye…, I haven't seen any of it. You must have bananas in your ears in Hungarian is: "legyenek banánok a füledben!" _ruffled owl_: glad you like the field trips :) 31 chapters in total. _TrixieFirecracker_: yes, the woman is who you think she is. The child will come into the story soon and will have a great role. No, Ginny won't seduce Draco to make him believe her child is his. You'll see why. _Embyr Black_: I'm glad you think my fic isn't easy to figure out :) _Myr Halcyon_: yep, Linda IS important in some way. I still find Mara Jade a funny idea :D _Zenon Lee_: action comes in chapters 13-15, until then bear with my build-up chapters, please. No, Ginny won't be in mortal peril from Draco, but from other things - maybe. _Inken_: yes, the Enemy reference was Vicar Diggle. Ginny wouldn't have been able to find a description of the Fates Charm, for it has long been deleted from all records, at least most people think so. Even certain people in chapter 10 will be surprised that it hadn't been deleted from all books, for it should have been. Bingo, you got the time-freezing idea well. Does Linda sound sympathetic? Good, I was aiming for that. Glad you liked the Remus Lupin's All Flavour Tonks line :) _K. C. Hunter_: well, even if Draco had died, but someone else cut Arthur's hair, then the curse would still kill him, if that's what you wanted to know. The curse doesn't depend on the person who cast it. Also, it had been cast by Lucius, and Lucius is long dead, however, the curse is still in effect. _Elizabeth Darcy_: I can't tell you which kid survives, it'd give away too much ;) Linda had a good reason to seduce Harry. You'll get to know later. How did she get into the school? Well, perhaps *someone* powerful helped her… _sarah_: the answer to your question will be in the next chapter. _Sparkle Tangerine_: LOL, he'll indeed shag her senseless (but as this is a PG-13 fic, you'll only get the 'softened' version of it ;) Yep, Phaedra was rude to the Weasleys, but I expect she was still very beside herself. She'll continue being a bit rude in the future as well, but in most cases her rudeness will be entertaining. Sorry, you didn't get to see her reaction, but as you see, she acted immediately and contacted Draco. Yes, Harry WILL meet his child. _Princess Ginny_: how did your football match go? No, Hermione won't figure out anything in this fic, for she will barely have any role. The same stands for Ron and all the Weasleys (except Ginny, who is a central character). _Missy_: the right spelling is Legilimency :) Yes, I remember the word Fanfictionalley-tastic, I just didn't remember that it had come from you :) _Indigo Ziona_: LOL, I was in stitches when reading your review. You aren't the first reviewer who talked about Linda being Tatyana. But nooo, you aren't close at all :) _Lioness-07863_: I update every 5-6 days. If you'd like to get update notes, join my yahoo group (if you haven't done so already. Link is in my ffnet profile). _Altec_: yes, perhaps even Draco has some good in him. Might turn out so later… ;) The Addams family reference was the bomb (Fester's wife gave him a bomb in a nice package).Yep, you're right about what you said in your second review. _Salyeva_: I have been called many things before (Queen/Mistress of Cliffhangers, JKR in disguise, Dark Lady of the Sith), but never the Queen of Angst. LOL. I think I'm better at humour than angst, but if you say that I'm good at angst too, then I believe you :D _Punky Poet_: nope, Linda didn't use a potion to turn young, she only used Polyjuice to turn into Cho, but that didn't change her real age. _Any last requests?_: I think we in Hungary don't have éclairs at all. At least I think I haven't seen/eaten any yet. You can still make Kingsley your MoM :) Remus/Tonks just seemed sensible to me. Apart from that, I love Harry/Tonks (actually I like H/T more than Remus/Tonks), but I rather want to see Harry with Ginny. Also, I wanted Lupin to be happy, and I couldn't think of any other girl, just Tonks. Yep, it's Vicar Diggle. _blaubaerin_: yeah, I know that the gathering at Grimmauld Place was sort of forced, but I wanted Harry and Ginny to get hold of Buckbeak somehow, and I wanted to put some humour into the fic, for it had been way too dark and angsty up till now. Also, I felt it'd be unfair if Ron and Hermione didn't have a chance to see Harry now. Nope, the Polyjuice can't change ages, at least IMHO. The mystery girl's age will be explained in another way. Up till now only one reviewer has managed to guess how. _heavenly182angel_: thanks for suggesting my group to your friends. I'm glad you like my arts there :) _Lady or Ravenclaw_: yeah, the age difference between Herm and Snape is bigger than between Remus and Tonks. I'm anti-Cho, too, as you might have seen if you've read The Greatest Enemy (I don't know whether you have or not). _frogilicious_: the fifth book put me off a bit, too, I also found it very dark and depressing. Ginny wasn't really preoccupied about suntan lotion, she was just joking (as you'll see later as well). Harry's daughter isn't in Greece - why would she be? You can guess who the child is with now. Clue: have a look at the coverart in my bio ;) _moony*padfoot_: you wrote that besides full-pensieve and me you haven't found good writers on ffnet. Well, then you haven't looked carefully enough, there are loads of great writers here. If you'd like to get fic-recommendations, then either send me a private mail or join my yahoogroup, and you'll find links to great fics in the Links/favourite fics section (my recommendations are the ones uploaded by 'vegaagi'.) _ArgiCallista_: did you get my mail? If not, then what sort of sketch would you like for your friend's b-day? _TigHan_: yep, there's some sort of a foreshadowing in it :) Also thanks to: _Bamboo Anime, iNiGmA, Kit Cloudkicker, MotorMouthLadyBee, To lazy to log in, goldenstar555, Hermione Weasley, Paige_


	8. The Book of Athena

**A/N:** thanks for the good luck wishes concerning my diploma, I managed to finish it on time, thought it was really difficult.   


**Chapter 8**

**The Book of Athena**

  
_Thou tellest my flittings;  
put my tears into thy bottle;  
are not these  
things noted in thy book?_ (Psalm 56)   
  
"He's here to kill you?" blinked Ginny at Harry, then back at the newcomer. "Exactly as he says," nodded Spiro sternly, his wand still pointed at Harry. "And _why_, if I may ask?" said Ginny, who - for some reason - couldn't take the threat seriously. Harry seemed way too relaxed for someone who was just about to be murdered, and the attacker looked everything but dangerous. "I'll kill him for seducing my sister, then leaving her in trouble!" Spiro said fiercely. Ginny arched an eyebrow at Harry, who was resting his chin in his palms, rolling his eyes. "You've already tried to kill me three times, Spiro…" Harry sighed. Nikias the restaurateur came out of the kitchen, up to the bar and waved at them. "Hi, there, Spiro, how're you doing?" "Perfectly well Nik, thanks, because today I'm finally taking revenge on Leto's evil seducer!" "Oh, Leto… your little sister," Nikias nodded with a grin. "A drink for you and your lady, Colin?" "Two Mavro Daphnes, Nik," Harry replied. "C…Colin?" Spiro stuttered, his wand-hand trembling. "Isn't Dudley your name?" "Why do you care what it is?" Harry shrugged, leaning back into his chair. "Because I want to know what name to write on your grave!" the Greek fellow shouted, riled by Harry's nonchalant behaviour. "You know…" Harry looked up at him, "if you really meant to, you would have killed me long ago. Also, you're holding that wand wrong for the Killing Curse. Bet you couldn't even perform it." Now Spiro's face was as red as a beetroot and Ginny thought he was fuming so spectacularly that smoke was coming out of his ears. "Okay, I can't, so what!?!" he yelled. "Are you feeling happy now?" "'Course I am," replied Harry. "If you used Avada Kedavra on me, you'd end up in the Labyrinth. I don't have the heart to be the cause of your getting into there." "Why do you think I would get into there? Why not you?" asked Spiro. "You definitely belong in there…" "Perhaps I would, but you wouldn't," Harry replied. "My heart would bleed to see you sent there…" A little explanation to the unknowing reader: the Labyrinth was the Greek wizarding prison on the island of Crete, built according to the original plans of Deadalus. The prisoners who were sent there usually went mad - and not because of the Dementors, for the Labyrinth wasn't guarded by any of them, but because they got hopelessly lost after a while. They found food and water on every second corner, so they never starved to death, but spent all their time wandering around on the corridors, often finding that they arrived at a place they had already been to five times before… one inevitably went mad in there. "Don't… don't tell me you'd feel sorry for me!" Spiro's voice rose in pitch, and his right hand was shaking so madly that he almost dropped his wand. "Of course I would be sorry," Harry replied quietly. "Why do you think I asked your sister for a date here a month ago?" "To… to shag her!" Harry shook his head. "No. I did it to tell her to try and dissuade you from joining the Circle, Spiro. I wouldn't say you're not talented, but… er… well… you are definitely not Circle-material. I knew this from the beginning and I thought you'd be risking your life too much if you joined." "Aha! I'm not good enough, am I?" Spiro stamped his foot. "Sorry to disappoint you Dudley… or Colin, or whatever, but it's too late! I'm a member - since yesterday!" "My condolences to your sister, then," Harry said. "So, you're still thinking of my sister! So you admit that you're the father of her child!" Nikias arrived at their table with the two glasses of Mavro Daphne, a famous Greek red whine. "Have I heard it right?" he turned to Spiro cheerfully. "Are you going to be an uncle? Congrats! And Colin's the father?" he squinted at Harry with a mischievous grin. "Am not," Harry replied. "Are too!" Spiro shouted, grabbing his wand (still pointed at Harry) so tightly that it almost cracked. "Is that what your sister says too?" "No, she says it wasn't you, but I know she's just covering for you, you evil, foul, Don Juan! But I'll be fair and I'll defeat you in a proper wizard duel, pull out your wand you scurvy dog and fight!" "Don't make me." "Aha! The great Dursley chickened out!" "Great Dursley…" Harry savoured the sound of the phrase. "Would you care calling me Big D?" Spiro blinked stupidly. "Why?" "Big D's my cousin and a famous boxer. Any bloke he beats up will be very sorry… the same stands for me. Don't cross me if you don't want to be very sorry. In your own interest." "Don't you dare tell me what to do, not after you got my sister pregnant!" the Greek wizard spluttered. "How many times do I have to tell you it wasn't me? Never even touched your sister." "Then who was it, eh?" "Presumably someone very, very short-sighted." "What… what do you mean?" Spiro was truly getting confused. "I mean she strongly resembles a mixture of Millicent Bulstrode and Dolores Umbridge," replied Harry half to Spiro, half to Ginny. The latter couldn't hide her grin. She was finding the situation less and less dangerous and more and more amusing. Clearly Spiridion hadn't understood what Harry meant and was at the end of his tether, shaking with rage. "I don't care what you're raving about, Dursley, pull out your wand and fight like a man!" As though nothing had happened, Harry lazily reached out for his glass of wine. "Cheers," he glanced at Ginny and downed the wine in one gulp, then made to put the glass back on the table, but instead of putting it down, he raised his arm in the blink of an eye and thrust his elbow hard into Spiro's stomach. The Greek fellow doubled over, but before he could even straighten his back, Harry's fist had knocked his wand out of his grip and in the meantime tripped him. Spiro landed on his back and blacked out. Seeing Ginny's concerned expression, Harry shrugged. "Knocked his head against the floor, but nothing serious, don't worry." He picked up the wand of his 'attacker' and sat back at the table. "Ah, see, Nik's bringing our gyroses!" The restaurateur stepped over Spiro's unconscious body and placed their dinner in front of them. "Didn't want to use spells and take the place apart, Nik," said Harry cheerfully. "I had to do it the Muggle way…" he grinned at Ginny. "The real Big D would be green with envy, he never managed to knock someone out in four seconds. Don't worry about him, Nik, he'll be all right." "Who's worried?" Nikias smirked. "Spiro's been looking for trouble, he got it. I'm just wondering what to do with him now?" he pointed at the inert body of the foolish Mr Papafotiu. "We'll take care of him, won't we, Ginny?" replied Harry helpfully. "Do you have a free room, Nik?" "One or two?" asked the owner, who had some sort of a small hotel above the restaurant. Ginny was just about to say 'two', but Harry was quicker: "One, my cousin and I don't mind sleeping in the same room. Actually we'll bring Spiro up there and look after him until he comes around." "You have a good heart, Colin," the restaurateur beamed at him, "and a charming cousin, too."   


* * * * *

  
"Since when have I been your cousin?" asked Ginny ten minutes later, dropping herself into an armchair in their room above Nikias' tavern. "Since you don't seem to be too closely related to me," Harry replied, letting Spiro's body (that he had carried upstairs with Mobilicorpus) fall onto the carpet. "I couldn't have said you were my sister, could I? And I supposed you wouldn't be too happy if I called you my girlfriend…" for a moment their eyes met, remembering what it had been like to be boyfriend and girlfriend. "… not anymore, that is," Harry added and looked away, busying himself with Spiro. He conjured ropes to bind the chap's wrists and ankles together and pulled out some of his hairs. "What are you doing?" Ginny asked. "I need his hair for Polyjuice." "Polyjuice? What for?" "Before Spiro arrived to kill me, I was just about to tell you about the Book of Athena." Seeing her bewildered look, he carried on. "It's a very special book that's in the possession of the Circle. Some say the book was written by none other than Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom. 'Course I don't believe it, but it's still a great book and it might help us." "Help us? How?" Ginny eyes widened. "Does it have information on the you-know-what?" "Not directly. This book doesn't give the answers to questions like 'how can I make 5000 Galleons a day?' or 'how can I get rid of my annoying mother-in-law?'. No. It tells you whom you should ask to get the answer to your question." "Weird," she said contemplatively. "Dose it mean that you ask the book how I can be freed, and it'll give you the name of the person who can free me?" "Yes, or the name of the person who knows what to do or where to go." "But… why do you need Spiro's hair to read that book?" "Because I quit the Circle, Ginny. If I were going back with Phaedra, they might allow me to rejoin them, but since I'm going alone, I might get into trouble. They don't really like people who are unfaithful to them, you know. But Spiro here just said that he got made a member yesterday, and if I go there in his form, I won't get into trouble. Certainly you'll have to take care of him, we can't have him bursting in on me when I'm looking like him, the Circle people would easily find out which one of us was the real Papafotiu." "I don't think he'll be bursting in on you, especially with his arms and legs bound," Ginny remarked. "But tell me, how on earth are you going to get Polyjuice? It takes a month to brew, and we can't keep your little assassin friend here for a month not to mention that Draco might find out by then and… and…" her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "What if he… he… cuts the…?" "He won't," Harry reached out and pulled her to himself very gently. "Draco wants to have you as his wife, and if he cuts Arthur's hair, he'll lose you. Of course he'll lose you either way, because we're going to set you free and watch him explode with rage." Ginny produced a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sniff. "But Harry… what… what if he gets to know that I ran away with you and gets so angry that he cuts it? I don't want dad to die." "See, that's why we have to act as quick as possible. That's why I'm going to ask the book tonight. And don't you worry about Polyjuice. I have connections in Aesculapius' Apothecary. They always have some Polyjuice ready, you only have to add the hairs." "Isn't it… illegal?" she furrowed her brow. "Naturally it's illegal, but the salesgirl is a good acquaintance of mine, she's always ready to help." Ginny was just about to ask Harry _how good_ an acquaintance this salesgirl was, but thought better of it. "Be careful, Harry," she leant over and kissed him on the cheek. "Don't worry about me," he grinned at her, "just take care of Spiro. Cast a silencing charm on the room, we don't want people to hear him shouting for help. And let's hope that no one from the Circle tries to track him. Oh, and give Beaky something to eat, will you?" "How, if I may ask? Nikias has closed already and I can't conjure food out of thin air," Ginny replied. "It's seventh year material, so I missed it." "Right." With a swish of his wand Harry conjured a big heap of raw meat, then took the Disillusionment and shrinking charm off the Hippogriff who tucked in immediately. When Spiro awoke five minutes later, the first thing he caught a glimpse of was a huge beast munching on chunks of bloody meat only a foot from where he was lying. What could he do? He fainted again.   


* * * * *

  
Draco entered the Leaky Cauldron and headed for a table at the farthest corner. Since it was almost midnight, there were barely any guests, most of them shifty-looking goblins and ugly hags. Tom the bartender served Draco his favourite Firewhisky and warned him that he'd be closing the pub in fifteen minutes. "Fifteen minutes will suffice," young Malfoy nodded grimly. As Tom disappeared behind the counter, a slender figure descended the stairs. "Draco Malfoy, if I'm not mistaken," she said, stepping to the table in the dark corner. "Phaedra Potter?" he looked up, but her face was in the darkness. "Please, have a seat." She took place next to him, her features immediately illuminated by the single candle on the table. Draco had to force himself not to gasp. She was beautiful. Perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever seen… her eyes were huge and dark, and so heavily lidded that it reminded him of his Aunt Bellatrix. Her lips were full and reminiscent of a rosebud. A bit like Ginny's… Her skin was darker than the usual, it looked like that of the Patil twins… and her hair - it was wavy and a bit unruly. Had it not been jet-black, it would have strongly reminded him of that of the Mudblood Granger's. "Potter's an idiot," he blurted out. "Not that my wife isn't pretty, but…" "Thank you very much for your assessment, of both my husband and me," Phaedra replied sweetly. "However, I love that idiot and I want him back. I supposed you'd also want your wife back, that's why I wrote to you." "And I'm very grateful for that, Mrs Potter… er… may I call you by your given name? I get sick of the very sound of the name 'Potter'." "As you wish. I'll be calling you Draco, too," she nodded. "Right. So, Phaedra, can you tell me how we'll find them?" "There's a Tracking Charm between him and me, we can follow them with its help." "Brilliant," Draco's grey eyes lit up. "Can you tell where they're right now?" "Not exactly. Unfortunately the Tracking Charm has been weakening ever since he left… me," she said, not wanting to say 'ever since he left the Circle'. She had heard enough about this Malfoy chap from Harry not to trust him with things that needed to be kept a secret, but from what she had heard from Harry she deduced that such an untrustworthy, nasty and arrogant person as Draco would be of great help and support in separating her husband from that impertinent little redhead. "Weakening?" he knitted his silvery-blond eyebrows. "Yeah. It's so weak that it shows Harry's position of one day ago. Yesterday evening he was in Budapest." "Capital of Romania?" "Capital of Hungary," she corrected. "People always confuse Budapest for Bucharest, but I suggest you don't tell the Hungarians how much you like their Bucharest, because they'll be thoroughly hurt." "Don't worry, I won't. But tell me, how on earth are we going to find them if we'll always be a day behind them?" "A day? Hm, sorry to disappoint you, but the link will continue weakening, and in a few days we'll be not only one day behind them, but several days. However, let's hope that they'll spend at least a couple of days at one place, allowing us to catch up with them…" "Do you believe they will?" Draco grimaced. "No," she replied honestly. "Harry knows that I might be following him, so I don't think he'll stay at one place for more than a day. But you may never know what happens… once they might have to have a break, allowing us to catch up with them." "I don't like this uncertainty," Draco grunted. "It's still better to know that you're at least trying to get your wife back, instead of sitting here and waiting for Harry to return her to you." "As though Potter would do such a thing," he growled. "You're right, I don't think he would. He loves your wife." He glanced at her incredulously. "But then… why did he…?" "…marry me?" she finished the question. "Because I got pregnant and Harry acted like a gentleman. "And your child? Did he leave you _and_ your child?" young Malfoy gaped at her. He could imagine lots of things about his old archenemy, but not this. Noble Potter wouldn't do such a thing, would he? Phaedra shook her head. "He didn't leave our child… she died." "Oh…" Draco nodded. Something deep down in him wanted to say 'I'm sorry', but he managed to fight it back. It was just Potter's spawn, wasn't it? Why should he care? For some seconds Phaedra seemed to be trying to blink back a tear, then she swallowed hard and looked up. "So, are you coming with me or not?" "'Course I'm coming, I want Ginny back. And if I get to know that they did _something… anything_… I'll kill them." Phaedra held up her hands. "Easy does it, Draco. You can kill your wife. Killing my husband is _my_ privilege." "As you wish, sister," he smirked, hoping beyond hope that Potter hadn't yet done anything to his wife…   


* * * * *

  
_Lucky that the Apothecary's open 24 hours a day_, thought Harry as he crept through a maze of narrow streets. He had long left the main street - Falaf Alley - of the wizarding quarter of Athens and the farther he got from it, the narrower and dirtier the streets became. A pub (infamous for weekly fights that usually ended in at least one party's death) to the right, a brothel to the left… catcalling in the night, someone shrieking… heavy perfumes coming out of a house on the corner - opium, for sure… Finally Harry arrived at a small square with a pathetic little fountain that was trying to send flows of water into the air but at midway the flow seemed to lose heart and drooped like a wilting flower. The square was surrounded by houses standing extremely close together, facing away from the square - all you could see from the square was the ivy-covered blind walls of the buildings. Harry squinted around to make sure that no one was lurking in the alleyway leading to the small square. The streets around were deserted, not even the leaves of ivy on the walls around moved. He tapped the rim of the tiny fountain with his wand and suddenly the flow of water ceased and even the small pool around it dried out in the blink of an eye. In the middle of the pool there was a hand-shaped dent. Without any hesitation, Harry put his glasses into his pocket, drank the small bottle of Polyjuice with Spiro's hair and placed his - now Spiro's - hand into the dent. A door appeared on the blind wall of one of the surrounding houses and the fountain began to eject water again. "Welcome to the Circle of Hermes, Spiridion Papafotiu. Have an enjoyable sojourn," said a mellifluous female voice as Harry stepped through the door that immediately blended with the blind wall again. Harry had known the headquarters of the Circle for five years now - Phaedra had drawn him into the Circle right after they got to know each other - so he had no difficulty finding his way around. He had to get to the library. Everything was quiet and dark, only a couple of torches illuminated his path. After ten minutes of winding his way through the gloomy corridors, he reached his destination. He opened the library's door as noiselessly as possible and closed it behind himself, then headed for the sixth row where he knew the Book of Athena was held on the fourth shelf. He had never ever taken that book into his hands before, but every Circle member knew about its exact place. He had to question the book quickly and leave before the effect of the Polyjuice wore off. This late at night the Apothecary had only had a very small portion of the draught, the rest had been safely locked in the storeroom and would have needed some complicated wandwork from the shop-owner to open the lock, and she had told Harry between two yawns that she wasn't awake enough to go and get him more of it. Either he took this one-gulp portion or he should go looking for Polyjuice elsewhere. Certainly Harry could have named at least five other places where people could get illegal potions, but those places were so dodgy and their owners so untrustworthy that he didn't want to risk buying anything from them. So, with only one hour at hand (and only 50 minutes left of it) he quickly snatched the book off the shelf and placed it on a nearby table. _Hello, Harry Potter, what can I help you with?_ the question appeared on the old, yellowish, but totally blank first page with intricate ancient Greek letters. The book wasn't fooled by Polyjuice, then… _I need to know how I can free someone from The Fates Charm, Athena_, Harry wrote in English, but the goddess of wisdom (if it had really been her who had written the book) seemed to have no problem interpreting it. Her answer was mere two words: _Ask Pythia_. With that the book automatically closed itself. With a heavy heart Harry headed for the door. The book hadn't said much. Who was this Pythia at all and where should he look for her? Unfortunately he couldn't ask further questions from the book, because it answered only one question from anyone. Harry had used his question now, the book wouldn't reveal him any more. _Well, back to Ginny then_, he thought, already dreading how she'd react to him telling her about his unsuccessful mission. He turned left on the corridor and was just about to enter the hall through which he could leave the headquarters, when he caught a glimpse of a door to the right - the last door on the corridor. If his heart had sunk already, now it sank even lower. This door on the right led into the apartment that he had used to share with Phaedra and Daffy. Normally he wasn't the type of man to dwell on things long gone, but his daughter hadn't been gone for a long time, just over a week… forgetting about his intentions of leaving the building as soon as possible, he opened the door and stepped into the flat. Everything in there looked exactly the way it had the last time he had been in here - the Circle clearly hadn't given up on Phaedra yet. If Phaedra managed to find a new partner in a month, she'd be able to continue working for the Circle, and surely she'd be allowed to keep this apartment. Harry crossed the living room, to a cupboard that bore a small wizard photo of a happy family. It had been taken on little Daphne's fourth birthday - she had received a magical rocking horse that was moving of its own accord when Daphne mounted it. She was squealing delightedly in the picture, mummy and daddy kneeling next to her, flashing their smiles in the camera's direction. Harry turned over the picture and let it lay facedown on the cupboard. A single tear ran down his - Spiro's - cheek, his hand resting on the picture-frame: not wanting to see it anymore, but not wanting to release it either. His child… his little daughter… his _only_ child… Somehow he had always considered Daffy as his only child, not having any hope of ever getting a chance to see the other one… to _hold_ the other one in his arms… He had never _had_ another child, for that other one had been held out of reach from the first moment on. He had fathered two daughters and now he had none. He didn't know how long he had been standing there, gazing into the darkness of the living room… it could have been two minutes, but it could have been thirty-two as well. He had lost track of time. He got shaken out of his reverie by the griffin-clock in the hall squeaking twice. _Two o' clock already? Better be off_, he told himself and with a suddenly thought he opened the frame of the picture and took the photo out of it, slipping it into his shirt. Quietly he left the Potter-apartment, but when he was about to turn into the nearby hall, words caught his ears. "Have you heard it?" a hushed, but deep and grumpy male voice said. "I have, Jason… Oh, so terrible!" a female voice replied shakily. "I can't believe that He Who Must Not be Named could do such a thing! I mean… he's evil, we all know that, but… attacking Disneyland when it's full of children…" her voice faltered and she started sobbing. Harry's heart sank again, now even lower than before entering his old flat. So, Voldemort had started it again… Of course he had always known that one day the Dark Lord would come out of hiding and strike again, but he had hoped it wouldn't happen for a long time… If he thought it over, it _had been_ a long time… Five whole years had passed since his last encounter with the Dark Lord, and ever since Voldemort had been lying low, licking his wounds, trying to recover from the shameful defeat, having lost almost all his Death Eaters and his pride… Harry had almost done away with him last time… _almost_. And now it seemed that five years had been enough for Voldemort to gather his strength and return, like some boomerang: whenever you got rid of him (or you thought you got rid of him) he'd return… "Yes," the gruff male voice replied to the female. "It was horrible. Sleeping Beauty's castle is in ruins, the Dark Mark hovering about it, those two Muggles dressed as Mickey and Minnie got the Killing Curse and hundreds of children injured… fifteen of them dead. You don't want to see a picture of it, Leto, believe me." Harry shuddered at the mental image of a destroyed Disneyland, its streets and squares littered with wounded and dead children… his blood boiled with anger. Voldemort had no mercy on anyone, he would be able to murder his own… "I'm so afraid, Jason!" the female sobbed again. "What will become of our child in a world so full of evil?" "Shush, Leto… don't be afraid. You're a member of the Circle and we'll protect you and our baby." Something in Harry snapped. "Oh yeah?" he stepped out of the shadows. "Just like you protected m… Harry Potter's daughter?" "Hey, Spiro, old mate," Jason - who was built around the lines of Crabbe and Goyle but had a more intelligent face - replied, looking slightly nervous. "Er… how much have you heard?" "Enough to know you got Sp… _my_ sister pregnant," Harry corrected himself. He had already regretted losing his temper and jumping out of the shadows - had he controlled himself, he would easily have reached the front door without anyone noticing him. But somehow the memories of Daphne rushing back to him and then the news about Voldemort's latest act of terror had unhinged something in him… and suddenly he felt the familiar feeling of nausea wash over him, and he knew he wouldn't be able to cross the hall and get out in time… Spiro's wide and stumpy-fingered hands began to change back into Harry's elegant, long-fingered ones, he felt himself growing as though someone had grabbed his hair and started pulling him upwards, and finally he felt something he hadn't felt for five years: his scar was hurting like hell. Although he was quite short-sighted without his glasses, he could still make out Jason's dark features turn even darker and Leto's piggy eyes widen as they were fixed on his forehead. Obviously the Polyjuice had ended the effect of his scar-concealing charm and it had become visible again. _My, my, we are in trouble…_   
  
**A/N2:** in the next chapter you'll get to know what exactly Harry's hiding. I just love that part, hope you'll like it too ;)   
Obviously there wasn't any sort of attack in Eurodisney over the summer, but let's assume that there was one. I could have chosen another location for the attack, but Eurodisney was the place where I have spent the happiest day of my life, and I thought it'd be horrible if Voldemort attacked such a wonderful place. _TrixieFirecracker_: glad you like the details in the fic, I feared that some people would find them boring. What Harry feels for Ginny is love, not just lust, however, he tries to suppress it. _C-chan1_: hm, I don't think Draco would have cut the hair now… but later he might feel like cutting it… *Agi tries to look enigmatic*. My friend Kati who has been to Greece told me that most people use mopeds there, that's why I wrote it into the fic. Glad you liked the 'Dudley Dursley' line. Is that Peter Pan movie with real characters a Disney one, too? I've seen its trailer before Nemo, it looked good. There's no word like 'gyro', its gyros (but it's not plural). Funnily once a Hungarian person went to live in Sweden and started selling a typical Hungarian food called langos there, and people of Sweden thought that langos was in plural, and just called it 'lango', but it wasn't in plural, langos is the singular form. Weird, huh? The same stands for gyros. As for the pronunciation of 'legyenek banánok a füledben', it is something like ledyenek banaanok a phyledben (I suppose native English speakers can't pronounce the letter 'ü', so 'i' is the closest to it. English just doesn't have this sound) _Altec_: as you see, Spiro isn't a bounty hunter, just some very stupid member of the Circle. Flashback in the next chapter. _Lioness-07863_: nope, Harry really didn't count on Phaedra contacting Draco. _Hedwig55_: what didn't you understand? Chapter 6? Chapter 7? Send me an owl (with the subject 'question from Hedwig55 so that I won't think it's spam or virus) and we'll discuss it off ffnet, okay? Ginny is going to get pregnant in chapter 15. _Katrina Littlebird_: in which country do you live? Just wondering, because you wrote that you were learning about Hungary's history… As for Draco/Phaedra… ;) _heavenly182angel_: gyros is a typical Greek meal: baked pasta filled with fried meat, all sorts of salads and some sauce. Very delicious! Draco and Phaedra? Who knows? ;) As for the 'good' Draco… perhaps. _TigHan_: Harry will warm up to Ginny soon. You'll see in the next chapter what he's hiding from her. Did you get my reviews on fictionpress? _Imailil2sarcastic_: I agree, I also find ffnet easier to navigate than FA. But you should have seen a thread in FictionAlleyPark: it was about ffnet bashing. It's incredible how much most of the FA people despise ffnet, because of the low quality of most fics uploaded here. I understand them from a certain point of view: 80% of the ffnet fics are truly crappy, but I have read much more of good fics here than on FA. So there. I love ffnet! _Myr Halcyon_: if I had taken my anger over my diploma out on Harry, then he'd be in a thousand pieces now. But I wouldn't do that to poor dear Harry, would I? *looks innocent* I won't explain why Harry used Dudley Dursley as one of his pseudonyms, for it's not important. I just put it into the fic for some comic relief. I could as well have made him use Seamus Finnigan or Ernie Macmillan, but I liked Dudley Dursley more. _Zenon Lee_: well, falafel is a food that both middle-eastern, both Mediterranean people love to eat. So Greeks, too. And I just thought it'd sound spiffy to name a street Falaf Alley, for it sounds like Falafel ly. Harry and Ginny won't go to Mount Olympus. I didn't know that Zenon meant Zeus' son. Is your real name Zenon, too? Nope, H and G aren't going to Asia, and I haven't seen a single episode of Carmen Sandiago. Yep, this story does have cases of adultery. But don't worry, Voldie won't shag anyone anymore. Spiro as a FBI/CIA agent? Hahahaha! He's way too stupid for that! :D _Embyr Black_: obviously Harry's wife is jealous! You are still trying to figure out why they got married? Because Phaedra got pregnant and Harry wanted to make their kid 'legal'. The fic will have 31 chapters, just like Enemy. _Princess Ginny_: what is Hermione missing? I didn't get that. Congrats, glad you won! :) _Szihzoko_: what? You'd rather see Harry with Phaedra? Why??? _Inken_: yep, I like Greece. Wish I could visit it, but fat chance, given that next year the Olympic Games will be there, and everything will be too damn expensive. I wanted to travel to Greece in 2004, but now I no longer think I will. Perhaps rather to Italy or Spain. There *could* be racism in Greece, but let's assume that only some Muggles are racists, the wizards aren't. I didn't name Spiro after a French comic character, for I have never heard of a comic character named Spiro. I just asked my friend Kati to suggest me Greek names, for she had already been to Greece, and she said that every second boy there was called Spiro. _frogilicious_: the fic is 31 chapters long. Is 18th February your birthday? Great, because mine is 19th February! So perhaps I'll update on the 18th or the 19th :) About Enemy: I thought it'd be cool if H/G had triplets, and it has nothing to do with Ginny's age, it was just for the fun. Yep, eleven is too young to snog, but I wanted to put some romance into the fic (besides Snape/Bradley), so I had to put some child-snogging into it, too. Yvette (not Yvonne) is a year younger than Lily (Yvette is in second year, Lily is in third), and Christopher is the same age as Lily. As for the pic of the Enemy trio, drop me a mail, and I'll send it to you in a reply mail. _Wizzabee_: now you see why the random guy wanted to kill Harry. Spiro's a real idiot (but I sort of like his character, especially later). _OfTheWest_: were you surprised that Draco was sleeping with Pansy? I thought it was pretty natural… I'm glad I could brighten your day :) _Wood's secret lover_: yup, it's come back down, it was a typo. LOL. You are the one who came closest to reality concerning Spiro's personality. He's really close to a mental hospital escapee :D Yep, Harry uses way too many names, but Nikias knows him as Colin, and doesn't care that Spiro called him Dudley. Harry's using pseudonyms will have an important role later. _Amaranta_: nice to see ya again! :) Yes, the girl was who you thought she was. _rebkos_: glad to see you back! What Star Wars thing did you detect in the last scene? _Hermione Weasley_: dunno about Harry's personality. Even in JKR's writing his personality seems to change - a lot. Compared to the more or less peaceful boy of books 1-4, he seems to be a raving maniac in book five, at least that's how I see him. Certainly I understand why he's changed: he's gone through a lot. However, in my fic he's gone through even more than in JKR's books, so no wonder that he's changed, no wonder that he's become bitter and sarcastic, and he tries to look funny, hoping that he can hide his pain this way… I hope that makes sense. _HGLover_: I started to read the fic you recommended, it looks good so far :) _sweet775_: the 'Hungarian' sentences translate as: 'What am I doing here? People say that "lakem" (what's lakem?) held my husband in place while I severed his head from his body. But it isn't true, I'm innocent. I don't know why Uncle Sam says that I did it. I tried to explain it to the Police, but they didn't understand me." No, I haven't seen Chicago. Is lakem a person's name? Should it be written as Lakem? _iNiGmA_: yes, Harry's really powerful, but he isn't the 'superhero Harry', he will have to face the fact that not even he is invincible. He's just human, after all. _blaubaerin_: is the Tokay wine mentioned in His dark materials? I don't remember it, although I've read that series. However, I remember that in Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart trilogy the Tokay wine IS mentioned :) Do you like His dark materials? I didn't. I liked the Sally Lockhart series, but not this one. Well, the 'akarja-e naccsád, hogy elhúzzam a nótáját' has to be pronounced as (in German pronunciation): akarja e natschad, hodj elhuusam a nootaajaat. Yeah, goulash is a soup, and in original Hungarian it's written as 'gulyás'. Dunno how far away the Burrow is from London, but I don't think it's important. Glad you liked the Troy-portkey story ;) I haven't eaten falafel yet, only gyros, but allegedly falafel is simply the vegetarian version of gyros. Is that true? _hypnotic-babe_: well, Ginny isn't sitting back now, she's doing something against her 'prisoner of marriage' state. Nope, the language charm wasn't in JKR's books, I made it up, based on the Bible (read back in chapter 4 where Harry talks about it). I still say that Phaedra isn't evil. Just a bit selfish. _Elfy19_: yep, Spiro called Harry Dudley Dursley. You pronounce Spiro as Speero. Well, Harry's pseudonyms so far are: Dudley, Colin, Dean. He'll have another later, not telling what just yet. _Sparkle Tangerine_: hopefully later you'll find Phaedra's rudeness funny. No, I haven't been to Greece, but I would love to go there. Gyros is cool, I love it too! :D As you see, Spiro isn't Phaedra's ex or brother. Well, obviously my Harry is calm and cool, for he's gone through so much and learned so much that he is no longer that quick-tempered boy who he had once been. In the Circle he had to learn to control his temper if he wanted to achieve things - he had to grow up. But, as you've seen, at the end of this chapter he still had problems controlling himself, and it got him into trouble again. In most cases he manages to hold back, but now it was just too much for him to remain silent. _Indigo Ziona_: well, Phaedra might be slightly bitchy, but perhaps your view of her will change a bit later. Glad you like the different settings of my fics :) _apple-pie_: glad you liked the pic of Budapest :) I love Greek mythology, too! But who doesn't? _Elizabeth Darcy_: did I say that only one kid was going to live? I don't think I said that… perhaps both will live. Perhaps both will die. I'm evil. Don't put anything past me! The blonde in the coverart is Aphrodite. She isn't too important, I just felt like putting some Greek gods and goddesses there. Yes, the others are Hades, Athena and Poseidon. Well guessed :D The only Phaedra I knew before was the same one you knew. The queen Phaedra :) I've read Racine's drama, but I didn't remember that she killed her stepson… I thought that Hyppolitos just died somehow and Phaedra committed suicide… but then again, I read it so many years ago, that I barely remember it. _Mistri_: isn't the soup thing true? Well, I've read about it in a Horrible Histories book (written by Terry Deary), and in Horrible Histories books you can read about stuff that normal History teachers would never teach. So very likely it's true. _Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: you'll see Dudley in one short scene, but he won't be important. As for the other Dursleys - they won't even appear. _X-Tow-Naga_: well, what I had to write was rather a dissertation, but we in Hungary call it 'diploma work', or just 'diploma' for short, because this dissertation is needed to get your diploma certificate. I don't think Ginny was giving thoughts to re-growing her hand… Harry didn't think he needed to freeze Phaedra in time, for she had gone to look for a room, and very likely to rest - so Harry assumed that she wouldn't disturb him and Ginny. You're overcomplicating things with the portkeys, my friend. Perhaps not even Harry is as devious as you to think of making a portkey to the Greek border (not to mention that in OotP it is said that setting up unauthorised portkeys is dangerous). Also, perhaps he doesn't even know how to make a portkey. Not even he can know everything. As for the Muggle money thing: perhaps Harry didn't know any wizard hotels in Budapest. As for the language-charm: not every wizard/witch knows about it, only few fortunate ones. Dunno which Samuel Beckett I quoted, I just found this quote in a book. _Mage_: why do you think that the name Linda is an oxymoron? I think it's a fitting name (explained later) _Any last requests_: I've checked out theinkpen.net, but it seemed only to be a forum. Are there fics, too? If yes, in which section? _moony*padfoot_: I thought that you said it as a compliment, but I also thought that perhaps you'd like to get some tips about fics. You can find the URL to my group in my ffnet profile (the green flame torch), and you can join it if you set up a yahoo account (I don't know whether you have one or not). Everyone is allowed to join it, it's not age-restricted. _Jennie Chang_: glad you liked my trilogy and this one, too. Hope to see more of your comments in the future :) _Alexander Phoenix_: Phaedra isn't evil, and most definitely not stupid. She's just a bit selfish and really stubborn. _jennaration_: yep, we finally got OotP! I must admit that I love it much better in Hungarian than in English - but then again, I felt the same with the first four books as well. Our translator is a genius! :) _sarah_: I did a bit of a research on Greece, for example I re-read some of the Greek myths and got some brilliant ideas from them. Also, I read the Groovy Greek by Terry Deary, which inspired me a lot (I got the Spartan soup thingie from there). _Tap Dancing Widow_: well, the 'Ginny going into labour' scene takes place nine months AFTER the current events. See the date: it happens in May 2004, while the current events take place in August 2003. Also thanks to: _bambooanime, kneh13, TaMaraR, Sarahamanda, Shadowchild, K. C. Hunter, Paige, ArgiCallista, Mirloc, Kit Cloudkicker, goldenstar555_


	9. The Dark Secret of Mr Potter

**A/N:** this chapter is dedicated to Black Ice who has turned eighteen today :) Happy birthday, Black Ice! To those who don't know yet: if you wish to get update notices of this fic, then join my yahoo group (see url in my ffnet profile). If you only want to get the update notes and no other mails, then set your membership options to 'Special notices'. 

**Chapter 9**

**The dark secret of Mr Potter**

  
_"Every decision you make is a mistake."_  
(Edward Dahlberg)   
  
"H… Harry Potter?" breathed Leto Papafotiu, glaring at Harry's now visible scar. "But… but I thought your name was Dudley!" "Yeah, 'cause you're new to the Circle," her boyfriend Jason replied. "The old gang knows Harry's true identity and," now he stepped closer to Harry in a menacing way, "we know that he betrayed us." "I haven't," Harry said. "If I had, I wouldn't be here, but in a pile of ashes, don't you think?" "You can betray people in several ways, Potter," Jason 'Hightower' Stephanides cracked his knuckles. "You left us and that's nothing short of betrayal, not to mention that you betrayed my sister as well." Harry rolled his eyes. "Why does everyone nag me about their sisters?" "Watch your tongue, Potter!" Jason grabbed Harry's collar and jerked him to himself to look directly into his eyes. "It's my sister and your wife we're talking about! And you left her! You bloody well left her in her greatest grief when she had just lost her daughter!" "Hah!" Harry pushed the heavily built wizard back with such force that Jason stumbled and almost fell. "You're talking as though she was only Phaedra's daughter, not mine! And just to inform you, _I_ did not ask for this marriage! If your precious sister hadn't trapped me by getting pregnant…" "That's exactly it!" Jason bellowed. "You shouldn't have even touched her, then she wouldn't have got pregnant!" "Look who's talking, Mr-I'm-The-Father-of-Leto's-Kid," Harry remarked sarcastically. "What's this commotion?" a sleepy female voice came from the top of a nearby staircase. "Potter's back, Nausika," grumbled Jason. "Potter?" the woman's voice sounded surprised. She stepped forward into the dim light of the torches. She was a tall, slim woman in her mid-thirties with a strict expression that always reminded Harry of a younger version of Professor McGonagall. However, while Harry had actually seen Minerva letting her hair down on certain occasions (e.g. "Peeves, it unscrews the other way,") he had never seen Nausika Kondos letting her hair down. This could partially be put down to the fact that Nausika's hair was too short to be let down, almost boyishly so. Her manner also rather reminded that of a man rather than that of a female, and, to cap it all: she was in charge of the Circle of Hermes. "What are you doing here?" she asked Harry, folding her arms. "Especially without your partner?" "Not mention in Spiro's form…" added Jason. "Spiro's form?" Nausika looked curious. "Yeah. He's been using Polyjuice," nodded Harry's brother-in-law. "And why, if I may ask?" the Chief-of-Circle enquired. "Why, why, would you have let me happily in if I had come here looking like myself? Not to mention that the front door wouldn't have let me in, would it? I bet you erased me from the list of people allowed access to the headquarters," Harry snapped. "You are right there," admitted Nausika. "But I'd like to know _where_ the real Spiro is right now." "Why, can't Spiro's partner track him down?" Harry asked sardonically. Nausika pretended not to have heard his last comment. "Where is he?" "In good hands and he'll be released as soon as I get back." "_If_ you get back. But don't be sure you will. I'm going to make gyros of you, Potter," Jason growled, gnashing his teeth and he would have lunged at Harry if Chief Nausika hadn't thrown her arm out to stop him. "We hear him out, then you can make gyros of him." She turned to Harry. "So, Potter, do tell us please why you've come back." Harry's mind reeled, trying to find a good enough excuse, but knew pretty well that nothing would be good enough. Surely he couldn't tell them the real reason of his visit… So, he came up with the stupidest idea he could think of: "For… for this photo," he reached into his shirt and pulled out the wizard photo of the happy Potter family with Daffy in the middle. "I had no photos of my little lamb," he shrugged with a sad smile. For a second Nausika's strict features seemed to soften - she had liked that child, though never really showed it, as the leader of the organisation she was supposed to remain indifferent and strong so as not to lose face. Now, however… "Oh, Potter…" she reached out and pulled Harry into a gentle embrace. "I'm sorry about your daughter," she drew back, "but not even her death justifies your betrayal of the Circle. Jason - he's yours." Harry's brother-in-law stepped forward with a nasty, hungry grin on his face. "You're going to pay now, Potter!" "Too bad," Harry sighed and clasped his hands behind his back. "Don't irritate me, Potter!" Jason gritted his teeth, fumbling for his wand inside his shirt (important note: Greek wizards don't wear robes, because robes are too warm and don't allow a healthy breeze around most of their body-parts. They prefer Muggle clothing that consists of black trousers, white shirt and often a black hat. Witches wear black skirt, white blouse and occasionally a shawl around their heads. After this little digression into the world of fashion, let's see Jason getting really, really angry!) "I'm really, really mad now, Potter!" he shouted, jerking his wand out of his shirt. "_Fodere_!" "_Expelliarmus_," said Harry nonchalantly at the same second (he had managed to pull his wand out without his opponent noticing - while Jason had been looking for his wand in his shirt, Harry had merely slipped his hand into his back-pocket… Had Mad-Eye been here, he would surely have expressed his opinion about the dangers of keeping wands in your back-pocket. And Harry would have answered: "Come off it, Mad-Eye, I still have both buttocks in place!") "Hey!" bellowed Jason, seething with rage as his wand shot out of his hand and landed in Harry's. "Hey what?" Harry asked politely. "Want this back?" he fiddled with his brother-in-law's wand. "That's unfair!" "What's unfair? You wanted to make gyros of me and I didn't like the idea so took your 'skewer'. Honestly, Jason, this is the eleventh time I've disarmed you like this, don't you ever learn?" "Oh, but I _have_ learned!" growled the huge wizard, lunging at Harry with his bare fists (which was rather remarkable, given that his fists were three times bigger than those of a normal human.) "_Tempus Glacietur_!" said Harry a millisecond before Jason's gorilla-like fists could have make contact with his nose. He looked around, grinning - Leto and Nausika had also frozen in time, but neither of them looked as great in statue-form as his brother-in-law with his body frozen in the middle of a jump, his hands stretched out in front of him and his mouth open with some silent battle cry. Harry slipped his hand into Nausika's shirt (no kinky thoughts anyone!) and pulled out her wand, then flicked his own wand at the Chief-of-Circle, who stirred. "Nice spellwork, Potter," she remarked. "You're still the best in defence I know… pity that you left us." "Had to," Harry shrugged. "You didn't have to," she pointed out, trying to inch her right hand unnoticeably towards the cleavage of her shirt… "No use," Harry twirled her wand in his hand. She arched an eyebrow. "Thought of everything again, haven't you, Potter?" "Yeah, almost," he nodded. "With the exception of having to fight my dear brother-in-law." "Ah," she smirked. "You two could never stand each other, could you?" "Now you ask me: no. And you know what, Nausi? I never understood how you could have let him into the Circle. He's a total bungler where spellwork is concerned." "Well, true that he hasn't inherited the same amount of talent as Phaedra, but he's good with his hands." "_Good with his hands_?" Harry gave her a lopsided grin. "How do you know?" The Chief-of-Circle rolled her eyes. "I hate such jokes, and you know it, Potter." "Yeah, Nausi, I know." "Nausika," she corrected him. "You know I hate it when you call me Nausi, and you keep doing it." "Because taunting your superiors is fun," he shrugged. _Especially when you aren't made to write things in your own blood as a punishment_, he added in thought, his glance involuntarily shifting to his right hand. The words 'I must not tell lies' were no more decipherable on it, but some faint whitish outlines could still be seen on the tanned skin of the back of his hand. Strangely this was the first time in many years that he thought of Dolores Umbridge… he had no idea what had happened to her after she ran squealing out of Hogwarts, but he was pretty sure he'd never ever meet her again. "You still haven't answered me: why did you let him join?" he spoke up again. "And why have you let Spiro join? He's the greatest bungler imaginable, a threat to his own life!" "Phaedra pleaded with me to let her brother join, convincing me that he was as strong as a bull, and well… she was right," Nausika shrugged. "As for Spiro… he's my nephew." "Aha, family-ties, understandable," Harry replied mockingly. He had had no idea that Nausika had any family-members left. "But in case you're interested in my opinion…" "...am not." "…if you had really loved your nephew and niece, Nausi, you wouldn't have let them here. The Circle's too dangerous, only such people should be allowed in here who have nothing to lose…" "Like you?" she asked with her arms akimbo. He leant to the wall, gazing at his shoes. "I really had nothing to lose when I joined." "Really? I thought Phaedra was already pregnant by then." "She was, but I didn't know it then, she told me after I got initiated. I had really nothing to lose before joining…" his voice wavered. "I don't exactly know what you'd gone through before you joined, Potter, but whatever it was, it gave you a determination to learn quicker than any of our new members… I expect it had something to do with You-Know-Who?" He nodded. "And now he's back again." "Yes, I've heard," she nodded, looking crestfallen. "Last time it was you who defeated him, right?" "Only made him flee. I never defeated him." Harry chewed his lower lip embarrassedly. "I should have, but I… I couldn't." "Or you could have, but you felt you shouldn't," she said very quietly. Harry looked up from his shoes to meet her eyes, his own emerald ones wide with surprise. "How'd you…?" She shook her head. "I don't know anything, Potter, just put two and two together. News were flying around, saying you had almost killed him, but he fled at the end and you disappeared… Then you appeared here, looking totally woebegone and said you'd gladly die fighting the dark side. It didn't take much intelligence to find out that you had _let_ You-Know-Who flee and left Great Britain because you felt ashamed of it. You were trying to compensate for it by fighting dark wizards all over the world. You would have willingly given your life to catch them, just to expiate for having let that particular one slip out of your hand. Tell me if my theory is very far-fetched, I can accept that I'm not right all the time." Harry's mouth had been slightly open while listening to Nausika. "Oh, and close your mouth, you're none too handsome like that." Harry shuddered, as though waking from a trance - her words had awoken suppressed memories in him, taking him on a ride back into his past - a past by no means as immaculate as one would expect of the heroic Harry Potter. "No," he replied finally, his voice barely louder than a whisper. "It's not that far-fetched." "I thought not," she nodded knowingly. "You know, Nausi, when Daphne was born, I was contemplating quitting the Circle, to keep her safe, but… my guilty conscience didn't let me. As you said, I had to expiate… Perhaps… perhaps Daffy's death was my punishment." She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "An innocent little kid's death is too big a punishment, no matter what you have done." "No," he replied, gazing into the semi-darkness of the hall. "As the saying goes: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth… and in my case: a child for a child." Nausika Kondos was the type of woman who never got bewildered, and even if she did, she hid it properly. This time, however, an expression of complete confusion spread over her face. "What are you talking about?" "Nothing," Harry waved, though he knew it wasn't nothing. Actually it was _everything_, the reason for it all…   
  
_June 1998_   
Harry was panting, pointing his wand at the cowering Voldemort, whose Death Eaters had partly fled when Albus Dumbledore had appeared, partly had been disabled by the Hogwarts headmaster, who now was the late Hogwarts headmaster, lying only a couple of metres from Harry, his eyes closed, his glorious white beard spread around him. He had been murdered by Voldemort. Not far away from the deceased Dumbledore lay the dead Fudge, who had secretly followed Dumbledore, who had secretly followed Harry. Perhaps neither of them should have followed anyone, then they'd be still alive… Harry had barely believed it when he saw the headmaster - the headmaster he had almost believed invincible and sort of immortal - fall onto the ground, lifeless. Dumbledore had warned him to close his mind, to learn Occlumency properly, but he hadn't managed to - perhaps he hadn't wanted it strongly enough, or the person of his Occlumency teacher had been still bothering him… he had progressed in Occlumency, even learnt Legilimency partly, but not even two and a half school years had been enough for him to master it properly… there had been a tiny little gap in his mind that he never managed to shut down, and Voldemort had used this to play with him, to lure him to himself again… Now that he saw Dumbledore die, his mind started screaming how utterly stupid he had been; had he listened to the headmaster, Albus wouldn't have died trying to save him from his own stupidity… but eventually it had been Voldemort's fault, he had killed the poor old wizard… something had snapped in Harry and he had attacked the Death Eater-less Voldemort with such force and fury that he hadn't even known he had in himself. Apparently even the Dark Lord had been taken by surprise, because he soon found himself on the ground, his wand ripped out of his hand and Harry's wand pointing at his heart (if he had a heart at all). "What are you waiting for, Harry?" sneered Voldemort. "Kill me! Or are you afraid?" "I'm not afraid of wiping out a piece of scum like you, Voldemort!" Harry spat. "You say my name without shuddering… brave boy. Bellatrix told me you weren't afraid to say it." "Oh, your precious Bellatrix! She was one of those pathetic Death Eaters who managed to flee!" Harry growled, his eyes gleaming. "She left you here… she saved her own skin and left you here alone…" "Oh… it seems you're still mad at her because of your godfather?" Voldemort cackled, though he wasn't in a situation that would give him any reason to laugh. When Harry didn't reply just scowled down at him, his lips trembling, malicious joy spread on the Dark Lord's snake-like face. "Don't think she left to save her skin… it had been my order for her to leave in case something turned out the way it shouldn't. Perhaps you haven't noticed, Harry, but one of my Death Eaters hasn't even turned up here - an old friend of yours, Wormtail." "That rat isn't my friend," Harry hissed through gritted teeth. "Anyway," Voldemort carried on as though he hadn't heard the boy's comment, "Bellatrix has gone to join Wormtail." "Oh, wow, they'll form a formidable army," mocked Harry. "Perhaps they will," the Dark Lord said enigmatically. "Bellatrix has always been my best Death Eater, and Wormtail, pathetic he may be, can also perform the Killing Curse like he did with those thirteen Muggles and the Diggory boy…" "Why are you saying this to me now?" Harry frowned, thoroughly unnerved by Voldemort's small-talk. The Dark Lord was surely trying to mislead him, trap him… "Why?" Voldemort grinned devilishly. "Because I'd like to remind you that both of them are cruel enough to kill anyone… even your daughter." Harry thought he'd die on the spot. "M…my daughter?" he stuttered, the wand madly shaking in his hand. "Yes, your daughter," nodded Voldemort with the air of somebody who knows he had won the battle. "But… but…" "Who do you think has been sending you pictures of that infant from the day she was born? Me. Who do you think has her in their possession? Me. And what do you think would happen to her if I didn't survive today? She wouldn't survive either." Harry's knees buckled. This couldn't be true! Voldemort must be bluffing! But then… how else would he know about the existence of his child? "Oh yes, Wormtail and Bella will kill that innocent little being if I don't return to them safe and sound," the Dark Lord pulled his white, spider-like index finger across his throat, imitating a decapitation. "So… _you_ sent that woman to me in Cho's form…" the boy whispered. "I did." "Who's that? Don't… don't tell me it was… Bellatrix!?!" "Oh no," Voldemort shook his head. "Pregnancy would have hindered Bella too much in fighting for our dark cause, also, I'm not sure she would have been able to play the damsel in distress in a believable way. I needed someone with a touch of… innocence. My daughter was perfect for the task." This time Harry almost dropped his wand and stumbled several steps backwards. "Your… your… what?" "Daughter. My daughter," Voldemort hoisted himself off the ground and knelt up, using the opportunity as Harry's wandtip was no longer pointed at his chest. He seemed too weak to stand up, and Harry had learnt in his Apparition-training that one had to be in good health and have enough strength to Apparate. Clearly Voldemort here wasn't strong enough to do so. Probably if he had his wand back, he would be able to escape, but Harry wasn't going to give it back to him, was he? "You… you made me touch _your_ daughter?" Harry whispered, clearly unable to find his normal voice. "You made me fuck your damn daughter???" "Tsk, tsk, tsk, language, Harry," Voldemort folded his arms. "Don't speak ill of the dead." Seeing the young wizard's confusion, he carried on: "Yes, Harry, my poor daughter Linda died in childbirth… but I will always keep her memory in my aching heart…" he let out a cold cackle. "Well… not that I _have_ a heart…" "Why?" Harry furrowed his brows, slightly lifting his wand so that it was pointing at the Dark Lord again. "Why did you do it? And why _your_ daughter?" "Well, you know, this is a long story, Harry…" "I'm in no hurry," responded the boy, his face chalk-white, his eyes haunted, but determination radiating from him. "I'm sure you're not, but I am. Aurors might be appearing any time now. That would be quite convenient for you, young Potter, wouldn't it?" "Why do you think that any of them would appear here?" "Because I bet they've been ordered to take care of the Minister…" Voldemort squinted at the dead Fudge with a nasty grin. "So… I haven't got all day, Harry, and I'm going to give you a short answer: I did it to blackmail you. So simple." Harry's eyes narrowed, trying to decipher the Dark Lord's expression, to see behind that white snake-mask he had for a face, to glimpse into his twisted mind through his eyes, but those red eyes were impenetrable. Even if Voldemort had been lying, Harry couldn't see it on his features. "Blackmail?" he echoed the Dark Lord. "Yes, blackmail. You've seen what a beautiful little angel your daughter is… surely you don't want her to die?" Voldemort asked in a sugar-sweet voice - a voice Harry had never heard from him. Harry's mind was in turmoil. Wormtail and Bellatrix wouldn't kill the kid, would they? But… if Voldemort died or got captured, they'd surely vent their anger on the little one… A picture flashed into Harry's mind: the day at the end of August when he had got the first photo of the newborn. She had been so tiny, such an ugly little thing, but somehow so… cute. He had been thunderstruck when he had looked at the photo and realised that he must be the father, but some unknown warmth had flooded into his heart as he watched the tiny bundle squirm. One month later he had received a new photo, on which the child was already much prettier than on the first, her skin was smooth and rosy instead of being reddish and wrinkly like it had been when she'd been born. Month after month new photos arrived, all without signature, and Harry had great difficulty keeping all of them secret from Ron, Hermione and Ginny. With each picture his little daughter got more and more beautiful… she had reddish-blonde, curly hair and huge, emerald-green eyes… He had received the latest photograph merely one week ago. The baby in it had been sitting on a bed, holding a vampire doll, giggling. It looked as though someone behind the camera had been making funny faces to entertain her - surely not Grandpa Voldemort… Harry shuddered at the thought of Voldemort being a grandfather, and especially being grandfather to _his_ daughter. Would Voldemort have his own grandchild murdered? Without the shadow of a doubt, he would. "Kill me, Harry…" laughed the Dark Lord. "Kill me, and you'll be your own daughter's murderer!" Harry swallowed the lump in his throat. Could he do this? Could he cause an innocent infant's death? Could he _live_ with the thought that his own flesh and blood had had to die because of him??? On the other hand… he had the opportunity to rid the world of Voldemort. _And either must die at the hand of the other…_ …he was the one destined to kill this evil, twisted devil who had been terrorising the world for decades… _…For neither can live while the other survives…_ Either he had to die or Voldemort had to die, there was no other way, unless Sybill's prophecy had been incorrect - but Dumbledore had believed that Trelawney had given a real prediction in the Hog's Head… Harry was _the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord,_ yet he didn't use this power. He could have… he should have… yet he didn't. Suddenly there was a crack indicating that someone had just Apparated nearby - Harry couldn't see it, because the heap of stunned and disabled Death Eaters blocked the person from his view. He was sure, however, that someone on the Light Side must have arrived… This was the last opportunity to do away with Voldemort, before the Aurors intervened… but, inexplicably to him, he tossed the wand back into Voldemort's hand, who - knowing he had been cornered and was too weak to kill Harry - flicked it with a diabolical smirk and vanished. An Auror emerged from behind the heap of Death Eaters, spotted Harry, and all Harry could do to avoid being questioned was to Apparate away…   
  
_August 2003_   
Harry seemed to have forgotten that Nausika was there, he was so lost in his thoughts that he shuddered when she cleared her throat. "You okay, Potter?" the Chief-of-Circle asked in a worried voice. "Yeah, s'pose so," he nodded with a wistful smile, although he wasn't okay - nothing was okay. He had let Voldemort escape… he had given that evil being another chance to live and to kill, to wreak havoc… Hundreds of children injured, fifteen dead - it had been Voldemort's fault, but Harry felt as though it had been his fault, as if he had caused the death, the destruction, the pain, the tears… it was all his fault, because he had been weak for a moment, because he had let the angelic image of a baby influence him… he had known what would be the sensible option, but he had still let his emotions guide him instead of his sense… he knew he should have killed Voldemort, even if that would have meant the death of his own child, but he had been selfish… if he had listened to his sense instead of his heart, then those fifteen innocent children wouldn't have died at Disneyland yesterday… the life of one child wasn't worth the life of fifteen others, nor was it worth all the lives that Voldemort would extinguish in the future… Harry was sure that Daphne's death had been his punishment for placing his firstborn above others - his second-born had to die to make him repent of his sin… his _crime_, for it had been a crime against humanity not to do away with Voldemort when he had the chance. Crime and punishment… Harry felt that the punishment he has so far received for his crime wasn't nearly in accordance with the crime he had committed. He felt he should have been punished much more severely, he definitely deserved it… Or had he been punished more severely? Had Ginny's marriage to Malfoy been part of his punishment? He had suffered enough because of that, he had suffered for five whole years… but not even that could have been a strong enough punishment for letting Voldemort free… Harry simply didn't know what could be a strong enough punishment, but he felt he deserved anything he got. He deserved to die for his selfishness! All those innocent children… his heart clenched. All of them had to die to let his own daughter live… it simply wasn't fair. Involuntarily he thought of a part of the Bible he had heard in the church of Little Whinging on one of the rare occasions the Dursleys decided to attend a service: King Herod had had hundreds of infants killed to make sure that 'the future King of the Jews' would be among them and wouldn't endanger his rule. The child Harry had always wondered how God could have let so many innocent kids die just to save his own? He had felt it had been selfish of God… and now, he realised he had done the same thing, while his daughter wasn't even important in any way… she was just Harry Potter's child, nothing special, the world wouldn't have lost much if she had died, no one would have missed her… yet Harry had played judge of life and death, he had usurped a role he wasn't entitled to have… He had had no right to decide about the life and death of others… but there, facing the evilly laughing Voldemort, he hadn't contemplated things, he'd just acted on instinct, and his instinct had told him to save his child… At that moment he hadn't been thinking of the victims who'd have to die because of this decision. Over those five years when Voldemort had been lying low, Harry had often caught himself thinking of the 'what if' possibilities, and whenever he thought of killing the Dark Lord, the picture of a teary-faced little girl with green eyes and red-gold locks came into his mind - the little one looked accusingly at him, and sobbed: 'you've killed me, Daddy!' This picture had haunted him in his dreams as well, but now it got blurred and pushed into the background by the imaginary faces of fifteen unknown-to-Harry kids, all of them wailing: 'you've killed us, Harry Potter!' If Nausika hadn't been there, Harry would surely have run headlong into a stone-wall to crush his head on it in a Dobby-like fashion, just to get these disturbing images out of it… but in her presence he held himself back, lest she should think he was going mad! Perhaps he _was_ going mad… but what could he do? Hell, of course he knew what he _should_ do: find Voldemort and kill him. Even if his innocent little daughter would die if he did. _Innocent?_ he thought. With Voldemort raising her, she was probably already as far from innocent as Harry was from ever finding peace in his life. What sort of child could she become under Voldemort's authority? For a fleeting moment Harry felt nausea wash over him and thought that the little girl must be just as evil and twisted as her grandfather, and such a child didn't deserve to live… did she? "No, Nausika, you're right…" Harry whispered. "I'm not okay. Should I wake Jason to beat me into pulp?" She shook her head. "I'll wake him when you're already out of here." "What?" he raised an eyebrow. "Don't you want him to make gyros of me?" "I only told him to beat you up not to lose face in front of him. Anyway, I knew you'd beat the crap out of him before he even touched you," she grinned. "You're good, Potter." "Yeah, at fighting I'm good," he replied sadly. _In every other respect, I'm as bad as one can get and I deserve all the misery I get in life._ "Well, time to go, Potter. Try and stay away from Jason in the future. And give me my wand back." "Here, Nausi," he handed her the wand. "Nausi_ka_."   
  
**A/N2:**so, who gets the 500th review? _kryptKnight_: believe it or not, Harry's using too many pseudonyms WILL cause some trouble later. Dunno who Spiro's partner is for the time being, but later on his partner will be his sister. Perhaps he doesn't even have a partner yet. No, Phaedra will never ask the Book of Athena about anything. Some other people will. Later. Well, have you found out on google who Pythia is? Just wondering. _TrixieFirecracker_: nope, Harry won't be polyjuiced when he makes love to Ginny. Glad you like the hidden clues in the fic. Dunno if you've read my trilogy (also can be found here on ffnet), but that trilogy, especially its third part has even more of this 'JKR-like hiding clues and details'. Someone said that The Greatest Enemy was the best mystery fic they have ever read. So, if you have time, then read my trilogy too :) _OfTheWest_: yes, even Draco deserves someone ;) Certainly Harry will see his daughter. _Embyr Black_: re-reading is always a good idea, because one can't remember all little details. Someone said after having finished reading The Greatest Enemy that she re-read it, and she was amazed to see how I had hidden little things everywhere and how she hadn't noticed them :) _Myr Halcyon_: yep, I can relax a bit now, but not too much, given that I have to prepare for my exam at the end of January. The quote didn't foreshadow anything, I just couldn't find a fitting quote for this chapter and asked my beta Michael to find one, and he found this one, given that the word 'book' is in the quote, and the chapter was partly about the Book of Athena. Phaedra rather looks like Xena with wavy hair and dark eyes. She isn't as cold-looking as Bellatrix. Nope, Harry won't use opium :) Well, now some of the Greeks know that Harry is Harry, they just didn't recognise him in Spiro's disguise. _C-chan1_: I wasn't joking about the boxing thing. Even Dudley needs to have a career and he doesn't seem to be good at anything else but beating others up. Yes, the Hungarian 'o' is pronounced as in the word 'boy'. Well, 'eu' in 'feud' comes close to 'ü', but it isn't the same. The English language just doesn't have a sound like that. Yes, drawing hands is hard. People have already asked me for advice on drawing hands and I told them to either draw hands from pictures or ask someone to be their model. For example when I want to draw someone holding a pencil, then I ask mum to hold one until I draw her hand. Actually, English is a very easy language to learn. German is a lil bit harder. I don't know about Russian yet, just started learning it half a year ago, I'm not that good in it yet. Hungarian, however, is said to be damn hard to learn for foreigners. _Alexander Phoenix:_ nope, Harry hasn't used all male names he knows, for example he never used Tom Riddle or Draco Malfoy ;) _Zenon Lee_: falafel is the vegetarian version of gyros. No, Voldie won't attack the Buckingham Palace. Umbridge isn't a Death Eater, but you'll get to know interesting stuff about her. Yes, there will be plenty of Voldemort scenes in this fic! More than in Greatest Scandal. _Indigo Ziona_: actually Phaedra knows what a bastard Draco is (Harry has told her enough about Draco), but she's brave enough to team up with him. And you'll see that she can *handle* him. _Cant be bothered to login_: Phaedra told Malfoy because she thought that 'unity is strength' and together they'd be able to get their husband/wife back easier. _Sparkle Tangerine_: you'll see Voldie for several times! You'll see him enough to get fed up with him ;) Yes, this was the first time Harry saw Daphne after she died. Glad you like Spiro, I like him too. _Wood's secret lover_: yes, Daffy only died about a week ago. No, Spiro didn't escape from any lunatic asylum, he's just a bit 'weird'. _hi-voltage_: don't worry 'daddy', perhaps I won't kill him ;) _Mistri_: since the ancient Greece belongs to one of my fave topics/eras in history, I learnt about it with particular accuracy and I remember that I could have given anyone a lecture about the strategic moves of the Greeks in the Persian wars. Now I don't remember much of it, but all those years ago I totally loved the Persians wars (the same stands for the Pun-Roman wars, I knew the whole thing by heart). I know about the Spartan upbringing, about Thermopylae and even about the Taigetos. Those Spartans were some barbarians, killing the weak babies! But I particularly liked that when some Spartan told King Leonidas at Thermopylae that the enemy was so huge that their arrows blur the sky, then the King replied: 'good, then we'll at least fight in the shadows'. LOL, quite interesting mentality :) The only thing that I really liked about Sparta was that women were treated pretty much like equals there, unlike in the other Greek states. _Purple Star Dust_: nope, Adela (Tom's onetime lover) never slept with Harry. _Altec_: thanks a lot, glad you like Harry's character more here, I tried to make him more realistic, I'm happy you think I succeeded :) _rebkos_: oh, that SW scene! I never thought of it when I wrote that part. However, there will be some 'deliberate' SW references in this fic :) _Princess Ginny_: don't worry, my lips are sealed ;) _Wizzabee_: soon Harry and Ginny will be VERY friendly with each other ;) _Shadowchild_: you thought of it all day? Now that's flattering :D _EchoLark_: oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry about your dad. I'll pray for him. I hope he can get healed somehow! _blaubaerin_: yeah, perhaps they will get together ;) Don't worry, Harry isn't THAT corrupted ;) No, I haven't been told that Bucharest is the beautiful capital of Hungary, but someone I know has been told this by a British person and I thought it was rather ridiculous. Am I good at descriptions? *beams* Yes, Harry thought that he was in trouble, for I had been describing that scene from his point of view. Well, gyros is stuffed into the some bread-like thingie that looks like pita, but I just didn't find the proper word for that, so I just wrote pasta. After all, even bread is made of pasta ;) Spirou and Fantasio? Hey, I think I remember some cartoons with them! I even liked it, as far as I remember, but I wouldn't have remembered it if you haven't mentioned it. And no, I don't remember the marsupilami at all. About X-Tow-Naga's questions: he wrote that Ginny shouldn't have been scared by the prospect of her hand shrivelling, for she could have put it right just as Harry's bones had grown back… so it was just a weird thing he wrote and I couldn't really answer it. _Elfy19_: it is possible that Draco and Phaedra get together ;) Yes, Hungarians get really mad if people mistake our capital for that of Romania, and since the Hungarians and the Romanians aren't on exactly friendly terms, we feel hurt by it. _Paige_: perhaps ;) But don't be afraid, it won't be that terrible! _kneh13_: you seem to be the first who likes the idea of Phaedra/Draco :) _heavenly182angel_: the Circle headquarters isn't that interesting, it has many rooms and long, dark corridors. And the library. That's all. _Jennie Chang_: if the previous chapter tore your heart strings, then this must have done so even more. Am I right? _Katrina Littlebird_: *blushes* glad you first thought of me when you heard about Hungary. Once someone wrote me a mail, telling me that she heard about Hungary the other day and she had to think of me at once :D _TigHan_: no, Pythia isn't a goddess. You'll get to know who she is in the next chapter. _sweet775_: glad to be sharing your mum and sister's birthday :) _Inken_: no, Leto's child won't be important, but other child(ren) will be. Matura holiday? Does the whole class go on a holiday, or do you go with your parents? We don't have a matura holiday here in Hungary, so I have no idea! _Szihuoko_: I don't think Harry/Ginny could be wrong in any way, especially not in this story, because they had always loved each other, they had only been separated by evil Draco and Voldemort's blackmail. Harry and Ginny are only victims. As for Phaedra, well, she isn't an angel, for she has deceived Harry into marrying her, but she isn't a cold-hearted woman either, as you'll see later. She can be really emotional, and she loves Harry (at least she thinks she does). _frogilicious_: neither Phaedra nor Draco meant that they wanted to kill Harry and Ginny, these were just sarcastic jokes. No, Spiro isn't an Imaginer. There aren't any Imaginers in this fic, Daniel was and will be the only Imaginer I have ever written about and I don't think I'll write about more Imaginers in the future. _ayse_: do you like reading the Odyssey? I hated it. I saw a movie version that I sort of liked, but Homer's epic was just damn long and boring and very hard to understand… _Elizabeth Darcy_: I haven't heard of the Pythian games, so my Pythia has nothing to do with them. You'll find out from the next chapter who Pythia is. She isn't important enough to be on the cover (though Aphrodite, Pallas Athena and Poseidon aren't that important either, I just felt like drawing them ;) _enna seawave_: perhaps now you understand how the prologue ties in with the whole story. _Any last requests_: there wasn't much to explain about the Labyrinth, it was just some additional information. You won't see any of the characters there, so it isn't particularly important. Yep, I used to draw Disney characters for 6-7 years, and my style still hasn't been able to totally 'get over Disney'. I don't think it ever will :) But I'm trying to draw more realistic stuff as well, my latest piece on Jack Sparrow is really realistic, nothing Disneyesque in it ;) _Tap dancing Widow_: don't put anything past Voldemort! _Mlle Katie Bell_: I'm pleased to get to know that I managed to make you teary eyed :D Also thanks to: _Dragon21, K.C. Hunter, Genie FF03, dolphingirl79, Houou Kazoku-Kaga, Black Ice, Mage, Lavendar Brown, moony*padfoot, sarahamanda, Kit Cloudkicker, Hermione Weasley, iNiGmA, goldenstar555, Hedwig55_


	10. The Oracle of Delphi

**A/N**: since there won't be any new updates before Christmas, let me wish you all a very merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate around this time of the year). I have a 'Christmas card' for you, its link is at the top of my ffnet bio, check it out :)   
This chapter is dedicated to blaubaerin, who wrote the 500th review!   
  
  


**Chapter 10**

**The oracle of Delphi**

  
  
  


_"I have seen the future and it works."_   
(Lincoln Steffens)   


It was already five o'clock in the morning when Harry got back to the room he was sharing with Ginny, and for the time being also with the disabled, gagged, but seemingly very angry Spiro. 

When he entered the room, Ginny jumped up from the sofa where she had been trying very hard not to fell asleep, and flung herself into his arms. 

"I've been so worried, Harry!" she whispered into his neck. "I thought you'd been caught!" 

"Actually I was," he shrugged, feeling too tired and still too much under the effect of the shocking news about the Disneyland attack to return the hug wholeheartedly. 

"And…?" she asked in a worried voice, all her tiredness having evaporated. 

"Well, my precious brother-in-law Jason almost killed me, but good news," he looked down at Spiro who was madly struggling against his ties, "he is the culprit who got your sis into trouble. Not me, okay?" 

Spiro gritted his teeth through his gag. 

"Have you managed to question the book?" Ginny enquired, but Harry hushed her with a wave of his hand, indicating that Spiro was still there. 

"You know what, Ginny? Let's get rid of him, shall we?" he pointed his wand at the gagged and horrified Spiridion and said _Obliviate_!, then vanished the ropes binding his body. "You are free now, Spiro. Remember: Jason got your sister pregnant… that's the only thing you'll remember from our meeting, anyway…" 

Spiridion Papafotiu stood up, blinked and wished Harry and Ginny Happy Easter, then stumbled out of the room. 

"That's taken care of," Harry grinned, slamming the door shut again. "So, where were we? Yeah, the book." 

"Did you question it?" 

"Yes, I have, but it gave a rather vague answer. It said '_ask Pythia_', nothing more. If only I knew who this Pythia was! I know many people here in Greece, but obviously not everyone, and I surely don't know anyone by the name Pythia." 

He glanced at her to see her eyeing him in an amused way. "What?" 

"You really never paid attention in History of Magic, did you?" 

"No. Why should I have? Hermione always provided me with notes…" 

"But even that wasn't enough to get an E in your History of Magic OWL," she pointed out. 

"Of course not, if they asked stupid things like why Liechtensteinian warlocks refused to join the International Confederation of Wizards… Honestly." 

"You have an exceptional memory to be able to remember your exam questions of eight years ago," she said. "Had you at least paid a little bit of attention to Binns, you'd remember who Pythia was, he mentioned her in sixth year, when he talked about the great Diviners of wizarding history. He also mentioned Trelawney's great-great-grandma, Cassandra Trelawney." 

"I think I must have been a bit distracted when he talked about those, because I don't remember him ever mentioning Diviners," Harry replied. "Perhaps he talked about them in January or February, when I was too occupied with…" his voice trailed off, but she finished the sentence for him: 

"…the impostor. What's her name again? Linda?" 

"Uh-huh," he nodded. 

"Linda…" she savoured the word – now that she understood all possible languages, she understood this name of German origin, too. "It means snake, doesn't it?" 

"And what if it does?" he grunted. "Back to Pythia, who's she after all? What does she have to do with Diviners?" 

"Pythia was the greatest Seer in ancient Greece, she lived in the temple of Delphi. You know that the oracle of Delphi was the most 'trustworthy' one in Greece." 

"Trustworthy?" Harry snorted. "I don't trust any of the Seers, Ginny, not one." 

"But you believed Trelawney's prophecy about you and You-Kn…" 

His expression darkened. "You surely don't know yet, Ginny, but he's returned – yesterday he struck in Marne-la-Valle… that is to say, Disneyland Paris." 

She gasped. "No!" 

"Yes," he hung his head and flopped down onto the sofa. "Fifteen children dead, hundreds of others wounded…" _And it's all my bloody fault, _he added in thought. 

"I was so hopeful that he had died…" she said under her breath. 

"He hasn't." 

"You didn't kill him, then." 

"I never said I did." 

"But… according to Trelawney's prophecy you're the only one who is capable… right?" 

"According to her – yes. But I'm no longer sure she was right when she predicted this. It might have been just one of her delusions." 

"Perhaps it was," she smiled sadly. "Hopefully Pythia is a better Seer…" 

"You mean you think we have to go to Delphi and meet this Pythia?" 

"That's what the book told you, isn't it?" 

"But… haven't you just said that she lived in ancient Greece? Surely no one can live over 2000 years, unless she's in the possession of another Philosopher's Stone." 

"Harry, Harry, Harry," she shook her head, amused. "You can be so darn clever sometimes, but you just can't think in an abstract way. The book told you to talk to Pythia. With that it meant: 'go to Delphi', for the oracles of Delphi always called themselves Pythia. It is possible that today's oracle is called Hepzibach or Fredericka, yet in wizarding circles she is referred to as 'Pythia'." 

"Aha, I see. Pythia is some sort of a title. Would you like to get some hours of sleep before we go to Delphi?" 

But Ginny was spared the answer by a deep voice shouting from behind the door: 

"Open up, this is the Greek Magical Law Enforcement!" 

Ginny cringed and looked at Harry. 

"Open up in the name of the law!" came another voice from outside. 

Buckbeak lunged forward, as though trying to break through the door and attack Harry's 'enemies'. 

"Beaky, no!" Harry held the Hippogriff back. "Stay put and leave it to me!" 

"What do they want?" Ginny mouthed to Harry. 

"I expect they want to arrest me for having killed the Sicilian." 

"Open up at once or we'll be forced to blast in the door!" 

"Oh, I wouldn't want anyone to ruin my friend Nikias' property, would I?" Harry replied, and before Ginny could protest, he opened the door for the Greek wizarding police. "Gentlemen, do come in, please." 

Three gruff-looking Aurors, with wands drawn out, entered. 

"I don't think much of your boss, sending three people against one!" Harry remarked with his arms akimbo. 

"Too much for you, Dursley?" sneered one of the Aurors. 

Ginny thought that she had never ever met such unsympathetic Aurors. 

"On the contrary, I find it a downright insult that he sent only three of you," replied Harry. 

"Shut up, Dursley and don't even think of resistance!" one of the gruff fellows said menacingly. 

"I wouldn't think of it, would I?" Harry held up his hands, showing that he was unarmed. 

"Just to make sure you're defenceless," one of the Aurors pointed his wand at Buckbeak and tied him up so that he couldn't even move. 

"That's rude, gentlemen!" Ginny scowled at them. "Treating an innocent animal like that!" 

"Sorry, lady, necessary precaution. And you'd better not interfere if you don't want to be arrested for complicity. As for you, Dursley, you are under arrest for having murdered Anacleto Lucheni." 

"Fine, take me in, boys," Harry said obediently, holding out his wrists for the Aurors to put magical shackles on them. 

One of the Aurors reached out with a pair of glittering shackles (that opened and closed by spells, not keys) to place them around Harry's wrists, when Harry, quick as a lightning, snatched the wand out of the wizard's hand (the idiot had been trying to place the manacles on him while still pointing his wand at him). The other two immediately shouted _Stupefy!_, but Harry had already Disapparated from the spot he had been standing on, just to Apparate right behind them, with his own wand in his right hand, sending the same spell at them. Two of them hit the floor, the third one, whose wand Harry had snatched, glared at him. 

"Don't worry, I didn't want to hurt your buddies, as long as you don't hurt me," he told the other wizard. 

"We'll get you either way, Dursley," the Auror growled. 

"I take I got reported by a bloke called Spiridion Papafotiu?" 

"That's strictly confidential information," grunted the Auror, but Harry no longer had any doubt that good ol' Spiro must have reported him, very likely to take revenge on him for having 'impregnated' his sister. Then again, why did Spiro come after him to kill him, why didn't he leave it to the police? Hm, Spiro had always been a bit confusing… 

"I bet it was him and he reported me after I left the country," Harry said calmly. "And, alas, your warrant for arrest is only valid in Greece, and the Greek wizarding community has no treaty of extradition with any other countries… how unpleasant…" 

"That's true," growled the Auror. "But now you're back, and be sure that we'll get you. It was foolish of you to return, Dursley." 

"Yeah, yeah, foolish," Harry agreed. "_Stupefy_!" 

"Harry…?" Ginny spoke up. 

"Sorry, Ginny, we can't stay to have a nice nap, since it seems I'm wanted." 

Ginny yawned, but nodded. "We must get away from here as soon as possible." 

"Right," Harry put some money on the table and cast an 'only-for-Nikias' charm on it. "Just in case one of these gorillas wake up and feel tempted to take it," he explained, then freed the poor tied-up Hippogriff of his bounds. "Oh, almost forgot: _Confundus!_" he pointed his wand at the knocked-out Aurors. "This will make you feel a bit dizzy and go looking for your mummy, but don't worry, no permanent harm done. Come on, Ginny, let's go to Delphi." 

* * * * * 

"So, this is where they were the day before yesterday," Draco said, looking down at the Danube in the morning sunshine. Little white ships were coursing on the river in front of the neo-gothic Hungarian Parliament. Some bigger, elegant ones that usually carried passengers from the Black Forest to the Black Sea were moored along the coast. Seagulls crossed the sky above Draco's head and dived into the water only to reappear with tiny fish in their beaks. 

"That's right," replied Phaedra, leaning to the parapet on the Fisherman's Bastion, examining a tiny golden thing in her hands. 

"And where are they NOW?" the blond wizard demanded. 

"I'm trying to find out, okay?" she snapped, furrowing her brows, as though concentrating very hard. 

"What's this thing?" he leaned over to peer at the gadget in her hands. 

"It's a map that's connected with the Tracking Charm and shows Harry's location… of a day ago. Hey, don't look at me like that, it's not my fault that the Tracking Charm's getting weaker by the minute!" 

Draco watched as the fuzzy image of Earth disappeared from the tiny magical monitor to be replaced by Europe's map, then zooming in on Serbia. "Aha, so they're in Serbia!" he shouted. 

"Shhhh!" she pressed her index-finger to her lips. "Don't attract attention. Let the Muggles believe that we're looking at my cell-phone." 

"Your what?" 

"Honestly, didn't you do Muggle Studies?" 

"No," Draco replied superciliously. "Father always said it was beneath a Malfoy's dignity to study a lowly subject like that." 

Phaedra rolled her eyes. "It seems Harry's given me a proper description of you, Draco." 

"Why, what has he told you about me? That I'm evil and arrogant?" 

"Not exactly," she shook her head, her wavy black locks dancing around her head. "His exact wording was 'pathetic, snivelling, big-headed piece of scum'." 

"How flattering," young Malfoy grimaced. "In fact I could say the very same thing about him. And now he's made my wife elope with him! Oooh, if only I could catch him, I'd strangle him with my own hands!" 

"I'd do the same… to your wife," Phaedra added with a nasty smile, then directed her attention back to the map in her hand. "Anyway, I'm sure that they only travelled through Serbia… I have a feeling that they were heading for Greece. I can't see why Harry would go back there, but… something tells me that he's gone there. Unfortunately we won't find out till evening." 

"But I hope you aren't planning to stay here and sit on your laurels when you're sure that they went to Greece?" Draco demanded. "I for one want to go there right now and catch them before sunset." 

"Are you really this slow on the uptake?" Phaedra asked gruffly. "They're more than a day ahead of us, and we can't be a hundred percent sure that they went to Greece, and even if they went there, how could we find out where to look for them? In Athens? Corinth? Corfu? Crete? Rhodes? It could be a thousand different places. We cannot catch them before sunset, unless they stay more than a day in any one place, but knowing Harry they won't. Not when he knows that I'm after him - and I'm sure he knows or at least suspects it, since he knows me and I'm not the type to give up on him. Had he stayed in London, I wouldn't have left London until I'd persuaded him to come back to me. I never thought he'd run away with your wife…" 

"Same here," he growled. "I never thought my wife would run away with _anyone_. I thought I'd used enough persuasion to make sure she wouldn't even think of leaving me…" 

"Cursed her? Blackmailed her?" Phaedra asked curiously. After all her husband had told her about Malfoy, she wouldn't put anything past Draco. 

Seeing him wrinkle his elegant nose, she let out a small chuckle. "It seems I was right. Hm, Harry told me that subtlety was never one of your strong points." 

"He's wrong, it definitely is!" he countered. 

"If it were, you'd hide your emotions better, Draco. Even Harry's better at it…" 

"No, he's not!" 

"He is. He didn't use to be, but he learnt it. You should also learn self-control if you are to work together with me." 

"Who are you to tell me what to do, eh?" 

"I'm the _boss_, at least in this mission," she replied with in a dignified sort of way. 

"Oh, sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart, but I'm not taking orders from anyone!" 

Mysteriously Phaedra's right foot found its way through the gap between Draco's feet, and in the next instant Draco found himself sprawled on the ground. 

Some Muggle tourists around looked at them with interest, but Phaedra only smiled at them sweetly. "My husband tripped, the poor thing." 

Scowling, Draco got up, dusting off his clothes. He had been advised by his companion to wear Muggle clothing not to attract attention in Muggle-inhabitated places, and he regarded it as an abomination – but a necessary abomination. 

However, getting tripped by her way simply too much. 

What was this chick thinking of herself? No one's entitled to treat a Malfoy like that! 

After giving her a murderous look (that only caused her to grin) he turned his back on her when a seagull swooped above him and presented him with a huge dose of its droppings. 

* * * * * 

On Buckbeak's back Harry and Ginny left Athens right after Stupefying the three Aurors. 

"You know," Ginny yawned, sitting in front of Harry, "you pretty much amazed me, disabling three Aurors at once! Sort of frightened me, too. As though you had supernatural powers or something…" 

He laughed lightly. "Nooo. I don't have any powers that you or any other witch or wizard doesn't have. It all comes down to training. In the Circle I learned things that aren't taught in the Auror Academy. I had to go through some very rough training, and I admit there were times when I thought I'd give it up, especially after I hadn't been allowed to sleep for three whole days and my entire body was covered with marks from various jinxes and hexes. Lucky you didn't see me like that, I was a mess… I was afraid I'd never look handsome again." 

"And who said you were handsome?" she grinned, suppressing another yawn. "By the way, why did the Aurors also call you Dursley? Aren't they supposed to know who they are looking for?" 

"Well, I suppose it's because Spiro tipped them off, and Spiro has known me as Dudley Dursley." 

"Did Spiro see you… kill that Sicilian?" she asked in a small voice. 

"No, but at that time he already had a great chance to join the Circle and I think someone from the Circle might have mentioned it to him. And Spiro, believing me to be his sister's evil corruptor, surely wanted to get back at me and reported me, even though the rest of the Circle wanted to keep Luceni's death a secret." 

"I wish I could kick that Spiro in the ass!" she growled. "Or rather at another body part… where it hurts most," she corrected herself between two yawns. 

"Hey, lean back a bit, you can kip on my shoulder. You seem to need it and we still have about two hours before reaching Delphi." 

"What about you?" she asked, leaning back onto Harry's chest, resting her head on his left shoulder. 

"Don't worry about me, I can do without sleep for days." 

"Mmm…" Ginny murmured, already half asleep. "Harry?" 

"Yes?" 

"Why have you done it?" 

"What? Killing Luceni?" 

"No… coming back… when you knew you might land in prison…" 

"Because…" his voice faltered and he pretended to be yawning to give a proper reason for his voice trailing off. "Because… because I love you," he said so quietly that a whisper would have been a loud yell compared to it. However, she couldn't have heard him even if she had had very good hearing, because she had fallen asleep. 

* * * * * 

Shortly after eight o'clock in the morning Harry spotted the ruins of the one-time temple from above. He directed the Hippogriff downwards and with a gentle thud they touched down next to the temple. 

Ginny got awoken by the thud and for a moment she looked around, blinking, clearly not knowing where they were and what happened. 

"Slept well, Sleeping Beauty?" he asked, helping her off Buckbeak's back. 

"Yeah, though I could have done with another hundred years of sleep," she replied drowsily. "But I had a beautiful dream…" 

"And what was that beautiful dream about?" 

"Well," she flashed him an impish stare, "someone in my dream said they loved me." 

"Er… surely not Draco, was it?" he grimaced. 

"No, Draco could never say 'I love you' in such a gentle way." 

"Why… has he _ever _told you he loved you?" Harry arched an eyebrow. He couldn't imagine a Malfoy uttering the world 'love'. 

"Yes, he has," shrugged Ginny. "But never in too convincing a way." 

"Strange, because Malfoy can lie in a convincing way," he pointed out, tying Beaky's tether to a nearby orange-tree. 

"Actually, I don't think he was lying about this," she replied. "He sort of loves me, at least he believes he does. That's why he never let me get divorced." 

Harry shook his head. "Forcing you to live with him in the name of love is the foulest thing I've ever heard of. Perhaps he really thinks he loves you, but… real love isn't tying someone to yourself by all possible means. This is selfish love. Real love is letting go. Real love is selfless…" 

"Like coming back to a place where the Magical Law Enforcement is after you just to help someone?" she whispered, gazing deeply into his eyes. 

"Er… Beaky, stay put, we'll be back soon," Harry turned away from Ginny. 

"Um… we might be back sooner than he expects us, because I can't see where we are going," she remarked, and she was right: all that remained of the ancient Delphi were three stone columns on a circular dais. The rest of the columns were mere stumps, most of them broken into little pieces, their chunks littered in the grass around the dais. 

"_You_ said we had to come here," Harry reminded her, walking up the three steps to the Tholos (circular temple). "So we might as well look around, there has to be an entrance to somewhere if the oracle is still supposed to be operating." 

They walked around the ruins, but found no trace of an entrance to anywhere. 

"I'm not sure we'll find anything here," said Harry finally, leaning against the column in the middle. Suddenly the stone behind his back gave way and he fell through it. 

"Harry!" Ginny yelled and jumped through the stone to follow him, wherever he had gone. 

"Aaaaaa!" she screamed as she slid down a dark chute and with a thump fell right onto Harry. 

"This chute reminds me of the Chamber of Secrets," he said. 

"Don't even remind me," she grunted, trying to disentangle herself from him, which wasn't that easy in the complete darkness. 

"Mmmm… that feels good, leave your hand there a bit," he muttered. 

"Harry Potter! If I knew where your face was, I'd slap you!" 

"If _I _knew where your face was, I'd rather kiss you," he replied. 

"Really?" she whispered. 

"No," he answered just when a lurid pink arrow lit up above them, pointing to their left, illuminating the room enough for them to see that they were in an empty corridor. 

"Well, now we at least know in which direction to go," he said, standing up, holding out his right hand towards her to help her off the ground, but she didn't accept it, just stood up and walked past him with a 'don't-play-with-me' stare. 

Four metres ahead another arrow – bright orange this time – lit up, then a neon-yellow and a lime-green, finally a neon-blue, pointing at a huge board saying 

  


_The Oracle of Delphi_   
_Diviner-in-charge: Atina Papadimitriu (just call her Pythia)_   
_Trainee Diviner: Helen Menelaos (who has absolutely nothing to do with Helen of Troy)_   
_Want a prediction? Then come on in, just now, just for you, two prophecies for the price of one!_

  


"Wow, they know how to advertise themselves, eh?" Harry whistled admiringly. "But if I were in their place, I'd put the same ad into the _Gorgon Gazette_, the _Thebes Times_ or the _Jorgos Journal_. Then people would be flooding here." 

"I don't think they want everyone to know they're here," Ginny commented. "In 385 A.D. the Christians closed the Tholos and forbade the oracle to tell predictions. Obviously Pythia had to find a way to make sure that the magical folks could still come to her for prophecies. She had to keep out the Muggles though… unfortunately neither Binns nor our History of Magic book said where and how the oracle hid from the eyes of Muggles…" 

"We still found her," said Harry. 

"Are you coming in or do you want to stay out there, chit-chatting?" came an upset voice through the door situated under the advertisement board. 

"Was that Pythia?" Harry whispered to Ginny. 

"Must be." 

"Great," Harry rolled his eyes. "Trelawney at least didn't yell at anyone. Well, then, ladies first," he stepped back and opened the door for his companion. 

When Ginny entered, she had the impression of having stepped into some flashy nightclub, like a magical version of the Moulin Rouge. Various signs showing frogs, snakes and bats were lit up around the walls with the same neon-like brightness as the arrows in the corridor. Their light only got blurred a bit by the heavy lilac fumes issuing from four huge ceramic pots in each corner. 

Pythia herself was a terribly old thing, her face full of wrinkles, some of her snow white, flyaway hair poking out from under her black shawl that was speckled with tiny, fluorescent stars and moons. Her trainee, Helen, wasn't nearly as pretty as Helen of Troy, and Harry was sure that no Paris would have ever wanted to kidnap her. 

"Er, hello," Harry and Ginny greeted the two ladies. 

Instead of returning the greeting, Pythia gave them a piercing look and said: "You know, you might be right, we should advertise in newspapers." 

"But… but Pythia! We're supposed to be secret!" Helen protested. 

"Yeah, yeah, we had to be secret in the Middle Ages, but perhaps we've stayed hidden way too long… Nowadays we are no more in danger of getting burnt at the stake for predicting stuff… not to mention that business isn't too profitable this way – so few people know about us that we barely have any clients left… we have to advertise, by all means!" She turned to Harry: "Which newspaper did you say was the most popular, young man?" 

"The _Gorgon Gazette,_ as far as I know," Harry shrugged. 

"Right," the oracle nodded. "And now, what do you want?" 

"Obviously a prediction," Ginny said scathingly. She hadn't taken Divination back at school, so she didn't know Trelawney in person, but she had a feeling that Pythia here might be an even bigger fraud. 

"Oh, yes, a prediction," the old witch beamed. "And what would you like to hear a prediction about?" 

"Actually we'd like to know how we could free someone who is cursed by The Fates Charm," Harry replied. 

"Your little girlfriend, right?" Pythia pointed at Ginny. 

"How do you…?" Ginny breathed. 

"The old bat might be a bit senile but still can see things, and you flinched when the young man uttered the charm's name," answered the Diviner. 

"Well, yes, it's me. Actually it's not put on my hair, but on that of someone I love, and I'm being blackmailed because of it… I want to be free," said Ginny desperately. "Can you help?" 

Pythia held out a bony hand. "Ten Galleons or fifty Euros, sweetie." 

Harry and Ginny exchanged a dark glance, then Harry counted out ten Galleons and Pythia took them with an eager expression. 

"Right, then," she said and motioned to Helen to bring her a ceramic pot full of glowing tree leaves and herbs. She took several deep breaths, and after the sixth or seventh, her eyes started rolling and she went into a trance. 

"Very convincing, huh?" Harry murmured to Ginny, who wanted to express her opinion of Pythia being a good actress when suddenly the Diviner started to speak:   


_You must find the Row of Gods_   
_There you'll also meet the Fates,_   
_On Delos: fair Apollo_   
_And good Artemis' birthplace_   


"And what will happen if we find the Fates there?" interjected Harry.   


_The trapped will be free at last_   
_Not right there and then, though,_   
_And out of barren soil_   
_Tiny little plant will grow_

_But disturbance will arise,_   
_Flooding in like angry tide,_   
_The shamed one will trip and slip_   
_And will see the other side_   


"Barren soil? Plant? Shamed one? See the other side? What's all this supposed to mean?" Ginny enquired. 

"Sorry, dear, two predictions for the price of one, no more," responded the oracle, who abruptly came out of the trance. 

"And if I paid you one more prediction?" asked Harry a bit unwillingly. 

A hungry look appeared on Pythia's face, but it quickly got replaced by resignation. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but I can't answer more than two questions about the same topic. No Diviner can. But in case you're interested in something wholly different, then ask away… after…" she rubbed her thumb and index-finger together. 

"No, thank you," replied Ginny instead of Harry. "Let's go, shall we?" 

"Okay. Bye, Pythia, Helen," said the young wizard and left the crestfallen Diviner-in-Charge behind him. 

When the door magically slammed shut, he turned to Ginny: "You know, I can't decide whether she's just a greedy fraud or a greedy but talented Seer. However, I can't make head nor tail of these predictions. It's clear – or seems clear – that the trapped one is you, but who's the shamed one?" Actually Harry had a vague idea of who it might be – him – but what did that stupid Pythia mean by the shamed one slipping and seeing the other side? The other side of what? The Mediterranean? Not bloody likely – he had already been in Egypt, seen the other side of the sea… 

"Yeah," she nodded as they reached the chute and Harry conjured little lamps up the chute's sides and several pegs onto the chute itself. Gripping them they slowly made their way upwards. "Also, I don't know what sort of plant she referred to." 

"_Mimbulus mimbletonia_?" he joked. "Well, at least we got to know where to go, even though the prediction was pretty vague." 

"I'm not surprised it's vague. It's still better than the one given to King Kroisos of Lydia." 

"Why? What did Pythia predict for him?" he asked, reaching the top of the chute that ended in a thick black wall. 

"He wanted to attack Persia and asked the oracle what would happen if he did, and Pythia replied: 'at the end of the battle a huge empire will be vanquished'. Kroisos was happy and attacked Persia," she said as she also reached the top of the chute and they stepped through the wall together. For a minute they were blinking, shielding their eyes against the bright sunshine. "Guess what happened to Kroisos?" 

"He lost the battle, I presume, and the great empire that got vanquished turned out to be his own one," Harry replied. 

"Clever," she said. 

He looked at her with a surprised expression. "Why, have I managed to tell the right answer? I was only guessing." 

"But you guessed well," she smiled at him and slipped her hand into his as they descended the steps from the Tholos. "Thank you, Harry." 

"For what?" 

"For risking your freedom in coming back to Greece… for risking your life when sneaking into the Circle's headquarters… and for paying that greedy Pythia." 

"Don't thank me for anything in advance, Ginny. It is unfortunate – at least they say so." 

"Then I'll thank you when I'm free," she replied and didn't let go of his hand until they reached the tethered Buckbeak.   
  
  


**A/N2**: I put a link to the temple of Delphi into the artlink section, check it out, it'll help you to imagine what it looks like. 

_Shadowchild_: not telling ;) 

_Katrina Littlebird_: you like Daffy more than Linda's daughter because you are biased against Voldemort. However, believe it or not, you WILL like Linda's daughter much more than Daffy, for she's an adorable person. She really has a personality, while Daffy doesn't get mentioned too much, so she is just the 'cutie' with no personality. I must admit that my fave character from this whole fic is Harry and Linda's daughter, she was so much fun to write. I liked writing her even more than most of the child characters of The Greatest Enemy. You will like her, I promise you that :) Yes, she is six years old now. As for Jason beating Draco to pulp… LOL, I've just written about something like that in a much later chapter. And no, Daffy won't be brought back to life. No green flame torches anymore. 

_iNiGmA_: you wrote: 'blackmailing Harry can't be the only reason, can it?' LOL. You seem to KNOW me ;) 

_Myr Halcyon_: how many exams do you have? I hope you'll get them all over with soon, they can be a pain in the ass. Yeah, perhaps I use 'get to know' too much, but only in replies to review (at least I think so), and in replies to reviews I don't care that much about writing 'perfect' English (not that I could EVER write perfect English…) 

_OfTheWest_: you got a lot of Ginny in this chapter :) You will only see the lil girl after Christmas. 

_FantasyFFan22_: no, it wouldn't be 2010, since Harry graduated in 1998, and now it's five years after it: 2003. No mistake with the timeline. Yep, H and G will get 'very friendly' soon :) 

_C-chan1_: why do you feel that it was foreshadowing about Umbridge? Perhaps because Harry might see her again… Is my Voldie really that clever? I never knew! :) The father's name in Nemo was Pizsi which sounds a bit like the Hungarian word for pyjama. Don't ask me why, I don't know ;) Yes, we get the Simpsons, but I don't like it, so I don't watch it. Once I saw half an episode that seemed to be a HP parody, there was some voldie-ish guy and some basilisk-like thingie, and Homer's daughter was waving a wand… that's all I remember. 

_Lady of Ravenclaw_: yep, the Harry gyros sounds really interesting – for cannibals ;) 

_Hedwig55_: I'm not likely to draw a baby pic of Harry's daughter, because drawing babies is EXTREMELY difficult. I've tried it on a couple of occasions, and the only one I succeeded is the 'James holding baby Harry' pic, dunno if you've seen that one. If not, then drop me a mail and I'll send it to you :) 

_Zyrorai_: you're a genius! Besides you no one managed to find out that they had to go to Delphi! 

_blaubaerin_: I hope you got a response from the newspaper in time. It can be really annoying to depend on people who don't want to help – I had the same problems with my diploma. Tell me how your presentation worked out! I haven't read any Karl May novels, only seen some movie versions of his novels. Nausika comes from Odyssey, and it has nothing to do with nausea ;) It wasn't Voldemort who made faces at the child, he hates his granddaughter with a fiery passion. Someone else made those faces – you'll find out from the next chapter. 

_Kit Cloudkicker_: weird is good, it means it's unusual and usual can be boring sometimes :) 

_Houou Kazoku-Kaga:_ I love making Harry and Voldemort sort of related. It's fun :) 

_hypnotic babe_: the present time for Ginny will be only in chapter 23. A lot has to happen in the past till then :) 

_Wizzabee_: Harry gets pics of his daughter once in a while, and the child is older at each picture, so he can be sure that the pics weren't made years ago and his daughter must still be alive. Anyway, in the next chapter he'll be totally sure that she's still alive. 

_enna seawave_: Adela died. More on that in chapter 19. 

_K.C. Hunter:_ yep, Voldie making funny faces behind the camera IS a scary thought. But it wasn't Voldie. How did your finals go? I hope you managed them well. 

_Imalil2sarcastic_: no, Voldie's daughter isn't that old. She should be, but she isn't. I'll explain that later. Hehe, you too think that the child is evil. And you too are wrong. Just wait it out! 

_jennaration_: I'm not a LotR fan. I'll watch the movie, but I don't think I'll be that taken with it, I wasn't that taken with the first two movies either. Merry Christmas in Hungarian is 'Boldog karácsonyt!' 

_TrixieFirecracker_: H and G will get over their inhibitions soon. How? You'll see. There will be some passionate moments already in the next chapter, though they won't *do it* till chapter 15. Don't call Harry's child a hybrid! She doesn't deserve to be called something like that, she's a person, not some animal or plant! Anyway, you suspected it right that Voldie is keeping her for a reason. You'll find out why in chapter 19. 

_Jennie Chang_: well, Harry's daughter SHOULD BE evil, but for some reason she isn't. More on that later. I can imagine how hard it was for you to write about a miscarriage. I wrote about one in The Greatest Enemy and I almost cried when I did! I'd love to illustrate your works, but truth be told I haven't even managed to illustrate all of my chapters, someone else asked me to illustrate his fic as well, and I think I'll have to turn him down too :( I don't have enough time for that :( 

_szihuoko_: I hope it will be believable to you. 

_moony*padfoot_: usually I put things into my fics for a reason ;) 

_DarkFlower2113:_ yes, Linda was really the child's mother. You got Draco/Phaedra in this chapter :) 

_Inken_: I don't think Voldie is THAT confident about winning. After all, there's that prophecy, and in OotP he seemed pretty anxious about it… it means he isn't that confident. Where is your class going on matura holiday? 

_sikokid_: Harry's first daughter – the one from Linda – hasn't died. His second one – Daphne – died. 

_Swanny:_ so, you've read Horrible Histories, too? Great :) I remember that one reviewer wrote that they have read it, I just didn't remember who it was. 

_Elizabeth Darcy_: no, Adela didn't die of childbirth. No, Voldie didn't cast a spell on his daughter to make her forever young. Ginny's kid was conceived at the very end of August, and it's due nine months later, in May. Just count it: September (1), October (2), November (3), December (4), January (5), February (6), March (7), April (8), May (9). The Fates Charm won't play a part in getting rid of Voldie. 

_Winky55_: between the two of us, there will be a chapter with the title 'Liberty'. That should tell you something ;) 

_Princess Ginny_: nope, Voldie never had any feelings for his daughter and he wasn't a bit sad when she died. Can you imagine Voldemort LOVING someone? I can't. 

_kryptKnight_: no, Harry's Pythia didn't have anything to do with athletics, as you've seen. Anti drug theme? LOL, no. Pythia's relation to the Fates is that they are all Greek, nothing else :) 

_Punky Poet:_ very likely it is ;) 

_Hermione Weasley:_ yes, I've been giving thoughts to write a Harry/Tonks fic, but I don't know whether I will ever write one. For the time being I don't have a new plot idea, I'll try and think of one, but I can't promise anything. 

_Zenon Lee_: Harry is only connected to Voldie through his scar and now his daughter. Gyros is a pita filled with meat, salads and sauces. Very delicious. The goulash soup is made of chopped meat, potatoes and vegetables, and lots of powdered peppers. The Circle won't want to kill Harry, don't worry. Only Spiro was that stupid. I've checked out your online journal and was pleasantly surprised to see you mentioning my fics, arts and my group. Thanks :) Are you a Simpsons' fan? Just because there was that pic of Homer and Bart… 

_X-Tow-Naga:_ as it will be established around the end of the fic, the Circle of Hermes headquarters is like Hogwarts from the apparating point of view. You can't apparate in or out. If you could, then Harry wouldn't have needed to turn into Spiro to be able to press Spiro's palm into the fountain thus gaining admittance to the headquarters. Surely Harry wouldn't be afraid to utter Voldie's name, but remember that in OotP Bellatrix was scandalised to hear that Harry uttered 'Voldemort'. Yeah, perhaps he could have apparated to Gringotts, but it was already late in the evening and most banks close by then. 

_Elfy19:_ thanks, glad you think that my writing style has changed to the better. I have learned a lot about English in the last two and a half years, so no wonder that my current style is way better than that of TGSiHH :) 

_TigHan_: yes, the lil girl on the cover is Harry and Linda's daughter. Why does she have red hair? Well, her hair isn't totally red, but reddish blonde, and Linda's hair (just like Adela's hair) was reddish blonde. 

_apple-pie_: this chapter was much funnier than the previous one, wasn't it? :) 

_emaleth84_: I'm glad my fic managed to 'capture you'. No, I haven't read Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus or Ovid's Myth of Philomela, I just wrote that hands and tongue thing thinking that Draco would be evil enough to threaten Ginny with something like that. The only book that I based some parts of this fic on is Homer's Odyssey. 

_goldenstar555_: I'm happy I could surprise you (though unfortunately I couldn't surprise everyone, some readers managed to guess that Voldie's daughter would turn out to be the mum of Harry's child ;) 

_heavenly182angel:_ who would ever touch Voldie? Well, Adela did in the first chapter. 

_Romina_: I'm glad to see you here again, been missing you! The story has 31 chapters, just like The Greatest Enemy. Originally I was planning to write a 20-22 chaptered fic, but it seems that I can't write a novel-length fic under 30 chapters ;) 

Also thanks to: W_ood's secret lover, Mlle Katie Bell, figgiesblazin, Paige, Genie FF03, Lavendar Brown, rebkos, Embyr Black, Alexander Phoenix, hi-voltage_   
  



	11. Atlantis

**Author's note in May, 2005:** this chapter, as many others in many of my fics has been reuploaded since it had lyrics in it that I had to delete (and I didn't trust ffnet's quick-edit).

**

Chapter 11

**

Atlantis

The early afternoon was siesta time in Greece, when all shops closed and people hid in their houses from the unbearably hot sunrays.

Harry and Ginny spent these hours at Delphi, under a clump of ash trees, among which Harry had conjured two hammocks so that Ginny and he could have some sleep. The last time he had slept was in Budapest two days earlier, after all.

"Keep a lookout, Beaky, will you?" Harry yawned as he climbed into his hammock and dropped off immediately in the pleasant shade of the ash tree.

He was dreaming. This in itself wouldn't have been anything out of the ordinary, but what he dreamed about was definitely unusual. Not that he hadn't had such dreams before, but the last time he had had them had been in his seventh Hogwarts year - before he had partly defeated Voldemort. During those five 'Voldemort-free' years Harry hadn't seen anything about the Dark Lord's life through dreams, as though the connection between the two of them had been severed… and Harry had been happy about it, happy not to have Voldemort intruding into his mind, not to glimpse into the Dark Lord's mind in return, and not to have his scar hurting.

But Voldemort was back now, 'fully operational', and Harry was again dreaming about him…

_"My lord, the Disneyland attack has been a real success," a nasty male voice said from under the hood of a black cloak._

"How many Muggles died, Macnair?" asked Voldemort with a look of sheer delight on his face.

"Thirty four, my lord. Fifteen of them children," came the satisfactory answer.

"Oh, good, good…" Voldemort nodded. "The Muggles believed it to be a mere terrorist attack, but at least the wizarding folks now know that I'm back. The fools have been hoping that I died when I last battled Potter, but I've proved that the little brat hasn't been able to kill me," he added with a wicked smirk.

"Not when you're holding all the aces in this little card game with Potter, my lord," said Bellatrix Lestrange contentedly.

"Yes, I'm holding the aces, aren't I?" cackled Voldemort and squinted sideways at a little girl standing next to Wormtail. "Come here, child," he barked at the small figure.

The little girl cringed and looked as if she had shrunk in the wash.

"Are you afraid of your grandfather?" asked Bellatrix with a derisive grin.

The little girl shook her head, her curly red-gold locks dancing around her head, but her huge green eyes were filled with horror and her tiny lips were pressed tightly together, as though trying to prevent a sob from escaping her mouth.

"Then come here, what are you waiting for?" growled Voldemort.

The little girl suddenly buried her face into Wormtail's midsection, encircling his waist with her arms.

"I… don't… want… to!" she cried.

Wormtail gently pushed her back. "Go, Amrita, he won't hurt you!"

"He always… always hurts meeeeee!" she wailed, clinging to his arms desperately, as though hoping that Wormtail would protect her from that evil being she knew as her grandfather.

"Enough of this! Come here, child! Imperio!" Voldemort pointed his wand at her, and she walked up to him, no trace of fright on her face left - she almost seemed happy to obey.

The Dark Lord reached out and cupped her chin with his white, spidery hands. "Don't worry, I'm not going to do the ritual on you this time, child - I just wanted to see you. I, as a loving grandfather, wanted to see my beloved granddaughter."

Bellatrix let out a shrill laugh and Voldemort smirked at her. "I'm glad you like my sense of humour, Bella." Then he glanced back at the little girl. "You know, midget, you resemble your father and grandmother more and more every day. Disgusting."

Still under the Imperius, the child smiled, clearly not understanding his insult.

"Go now, I've had enough of you. I'll send for you next week when we'll do the ritual." He held out his pasty hand, and the child obediently kissed it, then backed away from him. Wormtail caught her by the hand and led her out of the room.

"So," said the Dark Lord, looking around, his eyes stopping briefly on every one of his Death Eaters. There weren't many of them - fifteen at most. Ten had been incarcerated after the Department of Mysteries case - only Lucius who had had connections in the Ministry had managed to talk himself out of prison. Macnair, Rookwood, Rodolphus Lestrange and Avery had managed to break out of Azkaban a year later, but Rookwood and Avery had been sent back to prison after the latest Potter-Voldemort battle. The Dark Lord's little army had indeed decreased, but he still seemed quite satisfied with them - the elite of his servants, the very best, the most loyal ones. And these faithful minions were now listening to his every word. "To the plan, ladies and gentlemen."

"The one about your becoming immortal?" asked Rodolphus Lestrange.

"Exactly." Voldemort nodded. "And thanks to our late Lucius now I know how to achieve it."

"Lucius?" some of the Death Eaters muttered, confused.

"Yes, Lucius. He had told me how to get into his manor by an underground passage decades ago. I sent Bella and Macnair through the hidden passage, into Malfoy Manor. They did it two days ago, after both Malfoys - the Draco kid and his Muggle-lover wife - departed, leaving only the house-elves behind. It wasn't hard to outwit them, was it, Bella? They didn't even notice your presence. That idiot Lucius had also told me about the alarm charms at his manor, so Bella and Macnair could deactivate them without any problem. As you may know, the Malfoys have the greatest collection of books and scrolls on the Dark Arts in all Great Britain, over four hundred books. Bella and Macnair used a copy charm on all of them, and saved their contents in a special book not so very unlike my onetime diary.

Lucius had never been too bookish, so he hadn't read a tenth of his Dark Arts books. I, however, had only to take the copied version into my hands and converse a bit with it. If I wrote 'tell me about soul-switching curses', then the required text appeared in the book. And when I wrote: 'tell me about the ways of gaining immortality', it did." With a triumphant grin he stood up. "Now I know what I need to become immortal."

"Is that a potion, my lord? Or a charm?" asked Goyle.

"I don't know yet," replied Voldemort. "But I will, soon. It's written on an ancient parchment, that some of you will get for me."

"And where is that parchment, my lord?" interjected Wormtail - he had obviously returned after taking the child out of the room.

"It's in…"

"Harry, Harry!"

"What?" he groaned.

"It's already five o'clock, you told me to wake you up at five o'clock."

He didn't look at Ginny, just sat up in his hammock. He was angry with her. Had she waited two seconds more, he would have heard where this parchment was… though, what would he have done if he had heard it? He wouldn't have been able to prevent Voldemort from getting it, would he?

His mind wandered back to the scene in which he had seen the little girl - his daughter. She had been so scared of her grandfather… she had said that Voldemort had been hurting her…

Harry's hands clenched into fists. How he would love to hurt Voldemort! Terrorising his only granddaughter! That man definitely didn't have a heart…

And what sort of ritual had Voldemort been talking about? Had he been doing it to his daughter?

Anger surged up in him, but at the same time he couldn't help but feel grateful to Pettigrew… only he seemed to be caring for the child, and the child seemed to trust him… perhaps even love him.

What Harry didn't understand was why he had had the dream at all, when he wasn't supposed to have such dreams anymore, not after having fully learnt Occlumency in the Circle. He was sure though that Voldemort hadn't intended to let him see this Death Eater meeting. Voldemort wouldn't have wanted him to hear what he was looking for… Perhaps it all happened because of him seeing Daphne's picture only a couple of hours earlier - the sight of his little daughter had turned his thoughts to his other daughter whom he had never seen but longed to see… and this dream finally presented him with the opportunity to see his older child, see her walking, hear her talking, to see more of her than he had seen in the photos… If only Ginny had waited a bit before waking him!

"Are you all right?" she asked worriedly when he hadn't answered for a minute.

"What? Er, yeah. I'm fine. Just a bit sleepy. Three hours haven't been enough to make up for a whole sleepless night."

"You can continue napping on our journey to Delos," she replied. "You can rest your head on my shoulder if you like. The journey to Delos must be much longer than the journey from Athens to Delphi, isn't it? You'll have several hours of sleep."

"Yeah, and your shoulder will be sore and have a cramp by the end of it," he said. "Anyway, we can't go to Delos on Beaky's back."

"Why not?" she frowned, and the Hippogriff also stopped looking for worms and turned to him with an accusatory glance.

"Because the wizarding authorities of certain Greek islands have banned all magical flying things from their area. Yes, even broomsticks."

"But why would they do so? It's totally mad!"

"Yes, mad. And the wizards on Crete started this madness after that idiot Icarus dropped dead during a flight from their island. The wizarding population of Crete decided that flying was dangerous. They haven't flown ever since. They use mopeds instead, or Apparate."

"Icarus… Icarus…" Ginny muttered. "Wasn't he the son of Daedalus, builder of the maze?"

"Yeah, that was him. Though no one knows why exactly he built the maze on Crete at all, since it's been proved that the Minotaur never existed. Perhaps it was just a boggart that assumed the form of a Minotaur whenever it appeared for King Minos."

"And why did other islands also ban flying things?" she asked incredulously.

"Perhaps because Crete is the biggest of them and they wanted to keep up good relations with their 'big brother'." Harry shrugged.

"And how are we going to Delos, then?" she enquired.

"With the Hippobus, I presume."

"But haven't you just said that no Hippogriffs were allowed?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. The Hippobus is pulled by Hippocampuses."

Ginny's eyes widened. "Those half-horse, half-fish things?"

"Uh-huh. It sails out of Piraeus. There are two lines, one goes southwards, towards Crete, the other in a northeasterly direction, towards Troy. We're going to take the southern line and get off at its fifth stop."

* * *

"We'll be back as soon as possible, old boy, I promise." Harry patted Buckbeak's neck as he led the Hippogriff into a Flying Creature Repository in Piraeus There were several flying horses, some Hippogriffs and even a dragon (securely separated from the others) stored in this repository. Not a single animal rights campaigner would have found anything objectionable at this place - the repository was a huge garden invisible to Muggles with tiny woods, arbours and creeks, where the animals could feel pretty much like in their natural habitat - with the exception that they couldn't fly away because the airspace above the garden was charmed not to let anything bigger than a small bird fly out of it. Such repositories for flying magical creatures had been established in Greek ports since ancient times, after the ban had been introduced on certain islands.

"Yes, and see, there are other Hippogriffs, Beaky, I'm sure you'll enjoy their company," added Ginny. "Be a good boy."

With that Harry and Ginny turned around and headed for the gate, leaving the crestfallen Buckbeak behind.

They made their way to the coast where a huge hornbeam tree was standing with several witches and wizards under it, some of them occasionally glancing at their watches and one of them growling "It should have arrived three minutes ago! What are they thinking of, being this late! I haven't got all day, I've got to be on Syros at eleven o'clock!"

"German." Harry grinned at Ginny. "Germans have this thing for arriving everywhere on time. But look at the Greek wizards, they aren't in any hurry. That's what I've grown to love and respect about them: they never worry about time, hardly ever argue - Spiro and Jason are exceptions - they are friendly, patient and tolerant."

"I wish more British wizards were like that, too," Ginny sighed. "Then there wouldn't be this stupid racial prejudice that Muggles are to be wiped out and Mudbloods trampled upon…"

He nodded, gazing into the glorious sunset. The deep orange disk of the sun was already half hidden below the horizon, painting the sky in all colours of red, tangerine and yellow, its rays reflected in the Aegean Sea. "…and there wouldn't be any Voldemorts and Death Eaters either," he commented and he felt a hand slip into his, gripping it tightly.

"The Disneyland case… it shook you very much…" she whispered. "It shook me, too. You-Know-Who has to be stopped somehow… and if you're the only one who can…"

"Let's talk about something else, Ginny," he replied, pulling his hand out of hers.

She sighed. "You're doing the same as in your sixth year. Hiding something."

"And what if I am?" he snapped so that the witches and wizards waiting for the Hippobus looked at him with interest. "What if I am?" he leaned closer to Ginny so that the other wouldn't hear him. "I can have secrets, can't I?"

"Of… of course," she replied, slightly taken aback by his outburst. How could she have known what Harry had seen in his dream that afternoon? How could she have known that the Dark Lord was very likely to gain immortality soon? And how could she have known how Voldemort was treating Harry's little daughter - especially when she had no idea that the child was in Voldemort's custody?

"Ah, the Hippobus!" someone cried happily and Ginny stood on her tiptoes to see what was happening.

She could barely believe her eyes: ten huge Hippocampuses were emerging from the water, a long silvery case looking like a bus without any wheels behind them.

The half-horse, half-fish creatures swam to the shore and basked in the setting sun's rays while a ramp was extended from the bus onto the sandy beach. In a couple of minutes the bus was emptied of witches and wizards, and the new passengers could get on.

Harry and Ginny got on last, only to receive a 'Hey, Neville' from the conductor, who happened to be a pretty young witch in a very tight-fitting uniform and a peaked cap with the emblem depicting a Hippocampus. She was standing next to the 'driver' who directed the Hippocampuses by tapping certain cords with his wand. These cords were connected to their reins and as the driver tapped them, a tremor ran along the reins, making the creatures outside sense in which direction they should swim.

"Hi, Megara, how are you doing?" Harry asked the pretty conductor.

"Never better, Neville." She winked at him. "Where to?"

"Delos, tickets for two, please."

"Two galleons, eight Sickles." Megara beamed at him, handing him two tickets, totally ignoring the fact that he was clearly travelling with another woman. "We'll be stopping at Atlantis for the night and continue the journey at six o'clock tomorrow. Don't be late, Neville."

"We won't," replied Harry with a grin and guided the disgruntled Ginny to two vacant seats.

"So, _Neville_, where do you know _her_ from?" she asked after flopping down into the seat by the window.

"Just from the bus." He shrugged.

"Really?" She sounded doubtful, and kept determinedly gazing at the water-drops on the windowpane as the sun finally disappeared behind the horizon.

As the sun sank completely, the Hippobus set into motion. To Ginny it felt much like travelling on a boat - at least until the bus dived into the depths of the sea. Then it no longer felt like sailing, but rather like… like… she couldn't find the right word to describe the feeling. She had never travelled on board a submarine, but she assumed that it must feel a lot like this. The Hippocampuses swam so smoothly that if Ginny hadn't known that the bus was pulled by these creatures, she would have thought that there weren't horses at all; so many years ago the Thestrals had given them quite a rough ride, but with the Hippocampuses she couldn't feel anything of the sort. This ride was simply incomparable to anything she had experienced so far. Under normal circumstances, she would have been lulled into sleep by the gentle swaying of the bus, but she had no intention of falling asleep when there was so much to see. Colourful shoals of fish crossed the path of the bus, which had waterproof lamps on all sides, illuminating the water around. Ginny almost jumped into Harry's arms when a huge octopus came darting towards them. Harry chuckled at her frightened expression.

"Don't worry, unbreakable glass," he said, pointing at the windowpane.

"Who's worried?" She scowled at him, then turned away from him to continue enjoying the sea-scenery, or - in Harry's opinion - to sulk because of Megara-the-conductor's too enthusiastic greeting.

Their first stop was the island of Kea at half past nine. The Hippobus emerged onto the surface near the town of Korissia, then continued its way towards Kythnos, their second stop, and shortly before eleven o'clock they arrived at Syros. The grumpy German wizard got off, muttering something about the shortcomings of the Greek Wizarding Transportation Company, that - in his opinion - couldn't hold a candle to the German one.

"Not all Germans are this nasty, the ones I know are all really nice," Harry said as the bus submerged into the sea for the last part of the journey to be accomplished that day.

"And they're all witches, I presume?" Ginny arched an eyebrow at him.

"You're jealous." He grinned.

"Jealous? Hah!" She waved impatiently. "Why should I be? You're not my husband."

"No, unfortunately."

"Unfortunately?" she gasped.

"Wake me up when we reach Atlantis, will you?"

With that he closed his eyes and dropped off - or pretended to be asleep, Ginny couldn't decide. She was getting more and more confused by this new Harry - the defiant Harry not letting her speak when she entered 12 Grimmauld Place, the broken Harry admitting to having committed murder and shedding tears for his daughters, the secretive Harry not willing to talk about his other daughter, the compassionate Harry wanting to help her so much that he even risked his freedom, the cheeky Harry who kept irking her with his blasé comments and enjoying making her jealous…

Oh yes, she had to admit that she was terribly jealous of all women Harry seemed to pay attention to, she was even jealous of Phaedra, though she knew Harry didn't love that woman. Yet Phaedra had at least got to sleep with him and bear his child… and that impostor Linda - she had also given him a child, and Ginny envied her because of this… even though she had died.

Ginny had never ever felt jealous of Draco, not even when she knew that he was cheating on her regularly… she didn't mind Draco having dozens of lovers, yet the mere thought of Harry with someone else made her stomach clench.

She wondered what Harry could be feeling when he imagined her with Draco - if he imagined it at all.

She glanced at the peacefully sleeping Harry (if he just pretended to be asleep then he must have been a great actor) and felt like reaching out to touch his face…

Now she understood that one could love a person in several different ways. She had first loved Harry from the age of ten to thirteen, but that had been some adoration-sort-of-love, and definitely an unrequited one. Then, two years later she fell for him again, but at that time she didn't fall for the hero, the Boy Who Lived, but for a bewildered, ashamed, full-of-doubt boy. And now… it was different again. When she had entered the old Black house two days earlier, she had expected her suppressed-for-five-years emotions to resurface, yet she had come to realise that instead of those, he had awoken different feelings in her.

And, this third type of love was the most complex and most confusing of all the three she had felt for him. She wasn't sure, though, that she liked this sort of love, when it was so multi-faceted, so unclear, so… she didn't know what to name it. She just felt it, and didn't have the vaguest idea how to handle it.

She wished she could see into Harry's soul, to get to know whether he was feeling the same way or not… hadn't he told her he loved her when they were heading for Delphi? Perhaps she had only dreamt it…

Some excited voices broke her train of thought and she turned away from Harry to look out the window.

She immediately understood the excitement: what she saw in the dark, gloomy water ahead was a million tiny lights coming from hundreds of ancient-looking Greek buildings. It was a perfect image of a town full of houses with Ionian, Doric and Corinthian type columns and tympanums - but it was all underwater. Some of the buildings were partly or totally covered with seaweed, and all of them had some weird, transparent kind of wall set into their doorframes.

As the Hippobus parked in front of a building that bore the legend 'Hotel Atlantis', Ginny spotted several smaller vehicles, all pulled by one or two Hippocampuses.

"Harry." She nudged her slumbering companion, who opened his eyes, blinked and said with a satisfied grin: "At last. My favourite hotel in the world."

He stood up, followed by Ginny and headed for the exit where Ginny saw a long tube instead of the ramp this time. This tube led from the door of the bus to the entrance of the hotel, and one could pass through it into the building without getting wet. At the end of the tube/tunnel was a transparent wall that - like in all buildings around - served as the entrance.

Harry saw Ginny gape at the funny door and shudder as they passed through it.

"Tricky, huh? The door's water-repellent, but humans can enter it," explained Harry. "Very useful for witches and wizards who arrive with their own Hippocars, because Hippocars aren't big enough for carrying such portable tunnels and they have to swim from their parking places to the doors. When they pass through the doors, they dry off, since these tricky doors carry drying spells."

"Fascinating," said Ginny admiringly as she looked around the hall of the hotel. The back wall of the hall consisted of nothing but a huge window through which one could observe the sea-life outside.

All around the hall Corinthian columns were standing and an enormous whitish chandelier was hanging from the ceiling; the candles on it were all standing in shells, and the iridescent insides of the shells reflected in the candlelight painted the whole hall in all the colours of the rainbow.

Ginny looked over her shoulder to see that not many of the Hippobus' passengers had followed them into the hotel. "Where are the others?"

"Most of them are spending the night on the bus because they can't afford this hotel," he replied.

"How did your little conductor friend know that you'd spend the night in this hotel and not on the bus? She must have known it, otherwise she wouldn't have admonished you not to be late for the bus tomorrow morning."

"This isn't the first time I've taken the Hippobus and slept in the Hotel Atlantis." He shrugged. "Once I was almost late for the bus…" Here Harry turned away from Ginny, to talk to the receptionist, but Ginny strangely had the feeling that Harry didn't want to talk about the topic any longer.

"One or two rooms, sir?" asked the receptionist.

"Er…" Harry squinted at Ginny. "Two."

"One," said Ginny.

Harry's eyebrows ran so high that they got concealed beneath his black locks. "All right then, one."

After he got the key, he looked at her incredulously.

"What's this great conversion, Ginny?"

"It's just being realistic, Harry. Look around here, no surprise that most of the passengers can't afford this hotel, it looks darn expensive. I don't want you to spend all your money on me…"

"Money doesn't count," he told her seriously.

"But it does! It makes me feel uneasy that you're making all sorts of sacrifices for me, I feel too much in your debt already."

"Don't feel in my debt, Ginny," he said. "Helping you gives me a great opportunity for a bit of pay-back with your precious husband. By spending money on this mission, I'm investing in a Draco-irritating endeavour, and that means it's me who's in your debt, not the other way around."

"Ah, so you're doing this merely to annoy Draco?" She folded her arms.

"Partly." He shrugged, then suddenly cringed and hid behind Ginny's back.

"What?" she whispered, wondering who Harry was hiding from.

Three girls crossed the hall, heading for the restaurant part of the hotel. All of them had chestnut brown, straight hair that almost reached the floor as they swept past in their lilac toga-like dresses. As they disappeared into the restaurant, Harry came out of hiding, looking relieved.

"Who were these chicks?" Ginny demanded.

"Nymph, Nympha and Nympho. Sirens." Came the answer.

"Sirens?" Ginny gaped as they headed upstairs. "That sort of mermaids who enchant blokes with their song?"

"Well, not all of them are mermaids, some of them are half woman-half bird things, again others look totally like normal humans, like these three… but yeah, they enchant blokes with their song… and… actually… they were the cause for me almost missing the bus once."

"Why, what did they do?"

"Dunno. All I remember is that they cornered me in this hotel, then… I woke up in my room late in the morning and I didn't remember a thing. I still don't know what happened there, but next time I saw them they were waving at me rather happily… Well, here we are." He opened the door to their room.

She sort of regretted having asked for one room instead of two… Harry admitting to having very likely had an affair with three sirens at once miffed her a lot. It seemed that Harry had been with almost every female but her… she definitely felt like kicking something.

However, when Harry turned on the candlelight with a swish of his wand, all her anger disappeared to be replaced by awe. They were in wonderland for sure!

The room's walls and floor were carved of marble, several pearly white statues of ancient Greek gods and goddesses standing on the floor and various shelves - most of them modelling Poseidon, his son Triton and Aphrodite sitting in a huge shell, wearing next to nothing.

A small brook was babbling from a cleft in the wall, into a tiny pool with goldfish. The seats seemed to have been made of shells, like so many things in the hotel, and a thick layer of moss served as carpet.

In the middle stood a double bed made of the biggest shell Ginny had ever seen. It was cushioned with sea sponge. The room had a huge window looking out over the centre of Atlantis. The window had a curtain of bubbles hanging over it, and Ginny reached out tentatively to see whether any of the bubbles burst if she touched them, but when she saw that the bubbles were unburstable she pulled the curtain back to watch the scenery beyond the windowpane.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Harry joined her and they both gazed down onto the square that teemed with fish and merpeople.

"Breathtaking," she whispered, too touched to speak aloud. "I don't think I would have seen so many wonders from the bus, so… thanks for bringing me here."

"You're welcome," he replied, sneaking an arm around her waist. She didn't seem to want to resist too much… She bent her head on his shoulder and despite The Fates Charm endangering her father's life, despite her husband's rage when he found out about her flight, despite all the perils possibly awaiting them on Delos, she felt totally safe now, in Harry's arms.

"I wish we could remain like this forever," she said quietly.

"Wouldn't it be boring?" he whispered back, as though not wanting to breach the peace with loud speaking.

She looked up at him to see him smile gently - a smile she hadn't seen from him ever since his sixth year at Hogwarts… "Why, isn't it nice just standing here so peacefully? Isn't it… romantic?"

He nodded. "But I could think of even more romantic things."

"Like what?" She cocked her head.

"Like this," he replied and she felt it an eternity before his lips touched hers.

Suddenly a shadow got cast over them, and they looked up to see what had blocked the street-lights. It happened to be a mer-couple: a madly enamoured mermaid and merman snogging and floating through the water in front of their window.

Harry and Ginny burst into laughter.

"They're also in love," he snickered. "But I bet not as much as we are."

"Yeah, they can't love each other as much as we… er…" her voice trailed off and she looked away from Harry. "Have we just…?"

"…carried on where we left off five years ago, Gin."

"But… is this right, Harry? I'm a married woman…"

"…and I'm a married man. The only problem is that we married the wrong persons."

"True." She nodded, seeing that he didn't have many more of pangs of remorse because of Phaedra than she had because of Draco. "Harry… what will become of us when I get freed and can divorce Draco?"

"I'll divorce Phaedra, of course."

"Will she agree to get divorced?" she asked with a doubtful expression.

"Not likely, but I'll persuade her. Somehow I will, and then I'll propose to you, Gin."

"Really?" She beamed at him.

"Yeah. I'll buy you a ring with… what would you like? Sapphire? Ruby? Emerald?"

"Emerald…" She sneaked her arms around his neck. "Emerald, like your eyes."

"Oh, Ginny… I love you so much." He buried his face into her fiery tresses. "I don't even deserve you."

"No, Harry… it's me who doesn't deserve you." She sniffed into his neck. "You deserve someone who can give you children…"

He drew back to look into her eyes. "If I have you, I don't care if I don't have anything else, not even children."

"What… what about your daughter?" she whispered, fearing that he'd push her away and turn as cold as he had turned the last time she asked him about the kid.

Not this time.

"Ginny… come, sit down." He led her to a huge shell-seat that was big enough for both of them. "If we're talking about love and marriage already… I think we need to be sincere at last. I need to be sincere at last, even though it might turn you away from me."

She gulped, looking worried but excited. "Why would I turn away from you? I love you, Harry."

"But perhaps not even your love will be enough to overcome your repulsion when I tell you the whole truth. No, Ginny, don't interrupt me, please." He held up his hands when she opened her mouth to protest. "Hear me out, then you can decide. And I'll understand if you no longer want me after that."

Her eyes widened with shock, but she nodded.

"On the day of your… your wedding," he began, "Voldemort managed to lure me into a trap again… the same way as he had done in my fifth year. With Occlumency. Yes, I admit, I've been a damn bad Occlumency student. I simply didn't manage to master it… I got deceived by seeing you in Voldemort's hands…"

"Me?"

"Yes, Ginny, you. Of course I wasn't sure whether my vision had been right or wrong, so I tried to contact you in the Burrow, but you weren't there… your dad wasn't there either, and your mum said she didn't know where you were…"

"Obviously… I must have been bargaining for my father's life with Draco right then, and Mum wasn't supposed to tell anything, she was so afraid that Dad would be killed if she told anyone anything," said Ginny.

"Yeah, so, I didn't find you there, though the holidays had already started, and you weren't even at Grimmauld Place, so… so I drew the conclusion that you were indeed in Voldemort's hands… stupid me, falling into the same trap twice…" He heaved a deep sigh. "But at that time I didn't want to endanger anyone's life like I had done in my fifth year… I went there alone. I had no idea that Dumbledore had cast a Tracking Charm on me and followed me… He died there, fighting Voldemort and the Death Eaters…" Harry's voice faltered, then he gulped to make the lump in his throat disappear and continued: "I almost defeated Voldemort. I managed to rid him of his wand and he was cowering in front of me, totally at my mercy… and then he told me."

"What?" Ginny frowned, suspecting that the worst part was coming.

"He told me that I had been deceived by him… no, not that you weren't in his hands, I had realised that before I even started fighting him. He told me that it had been him who had sent that impostor to me in my sixth year."

Ginny gasped. "But… but why would he do such a thing? I mean, what advantage would he gain by making someone seduce you?"

"What?" Harry snorted. "That the woman was supposed to get pregnant. Voldemort must have seen to it that she was sure to conceive."

Ginny furrowed her brows, her pretty face contorting with the effort of concentration. She began chewing her lower lip, but seemingly couldn't solve the riddle, so she looked up at him again. "But why would it be good for You-Know-Who if you had a child?" she asked.

"Because he would bring up that child, Ginny and he'd be able to blackmail me with her."

Her mouth was hanging open, but her eyes revealed to Harry that she was beginning to understand things.

"Yes, Ginny… that's why I didn't kill him. He said Wormtail and Bellatrix would kill my daughter if I killed him," Harry went on, speaking to his shoes. "I was selfish, Ginny. I wanted to save that kid so much that I let Voldemort escape… I didn't even know that child, yet I regarded her as more important than ridding the world of Voldemort… just because that unfortunate kid was mine!" He looked up to meet her eyes and was surprised to see that he saw understanding in them rather than disgust. "I will never forgive myself, Ginny. Every single murder that Voldemort committed in Disneyland Paris and will commit in the future will be my fault! I should have sacrificed my daughter to save the world, but I was weak… and I made the wrong choice."

"Harry…" Ginny slipped her hand into his. "Don't blame yourself. All parents would have done the same thing."

"Would they?" He smiled sadly. "I don't think so. Your parents love all seven of you dearly, but… I think they wouldn't have hesitated to make the right choice if they had to… They know that vanquishing Voldemort is the most important thing… I knew it too, yet ignored it. If Voldemort destroys the world, I'll be the one to be blamed, no one else."

"You're too strict with yourself, Harry," she replied seriously. "If it had been my child, I wouldn't have decided otherwise."

"Even if you knew its grandfather was Voldemort?"

"What?" Ginny's eyes widened to such an extent that they resembled Luna's.

Harry pursed his lips. "The girl who seduced me… Linda… was Voldemort's daughter. Typical Voldemort-humour: he named his daughter 'snake'."

"But… holy heavens, Harry! This means that You-Know-Who must have slept with someone! Ewww!"

Harry had to stop himself from chuckling at her disgusted expression. The thought of the Dark Lord having sex with someone turned his stomach, too, so he'd rather not even try to imagine it.

"Yeah, that means he must have." Harry nodded. "And this also means that Voldemort and I are related now… well, sort of. He's the grandfather of my daughter. And he's treating the poor thing like shit."

"How do you know? You've never met her, have you?"

"Saw it. Today. In my dream."

She paled slightly. "Are you still having those visions about him?"

"It seems so. And it's funny because I haven't had any of the sort for the last five years. Also, I thought I had managed to learn Occlumency fully in the Circle - apparently I was wrong."

"Was You-Know-Who… torturing your daughter?"

"No, but I wouldn't put it past him. The little one seemed to be afraid of him and she said he always hurt her…" He gulped. "I seriously hope he's not casting _Cruciatus_ on her."

Ginny squeezed his hand, knowing that his younger daughter had died of _Cruciatus_.

"I saw other things in my dreams, too," he carried on. "Voldemort said that he needed some parchment telling him how to become immortal. I wish I could stop him… but I can't because when he was about to say where that parchment was, you woke me up."

"Oh… sorry." She pursed her lips.

"Don't blame yourself. You couldn't have known you were interrupting something."

"I'm not blaming myself. And I'm not blaming you, too. You just acted like a father… I'm just sorry for you."

"Don't be. _I_ got myself into trouble. Had I kept my trousers zipped, I wouldn't have got into this situation. Either way, it's my fault."

"Harry… I don't care whose fault it is, I love you - together with all your faults."

"I really don't deserve you," he breathed, leaning closer to her in the shell-seat. For a moment they just stared into each other's eyes, the only noise coming from the goldfish splashing in the tiny pool.

"You don't have to deserve me, just touch me at last, Harry," she replied finally, plastering her lips to his.

The mer-couple outside had left - perhaps to find a place more private, and the bubble-curtain fell back into place after Harry swished with his free hand towards it (his other hand was engaged in other activities).

Ginny thought she'd burst with pleasure - it was happening at last!

At that moment something downstairs indeed burst.

The lovebirds jumped apart, Harry immediately directing his stare downwards. With his glasses he saw through the floor.

"Death Eaters, damn them!" He stamped his foot indignantly. "Couldn't they've waited just half an hour?"


	12. Tension

**A/N: **I'm currently studying for my final exam (that is in less than three weeks), so updates might be slower for a while. Sorry. 

The quote of this chapter means 'as the tension, so the force'. (thanks for the Latin help, Michael!) 

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I would like to ask a little favour of you - especially of those readers who regard their grammar and spelling perfect: if you find any grammar or spelling mistakes that have escaped my brilliant beta's attention, then please tell me in your review. You'd help me a lot in avoiding being rejected on schnoogle - my Atlantis chapter got rejected there, because there were still some mistakes left in it. Thanks in advance for your help :) 

There might be some close-to-R rated stuff in this chapter, but I'm firm in the belief that it doesn't reach the R rating, just comes close to it. (Shame on me, that was a most enjoyable part to write!) 

This chapter is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, who died when I was writing the Draco/Phaedra scene of this chapter. That must have been the worst day of my life so far: my mum shouted that grandpa had suddenly lost consciousness and I should call the ambulance. I dropped the exercise book I was writing the fic into and hurried to grab the phone... but it was no use. I had to watch him die, not being able to do anything against it. That day Thestrals ran up and down in our garden, and all I could do to ignore them and suppress my pain was to sit back down, take the exercise book into my hand and continue writing the story. I think grandpa was way too down-to-earth, so he wouldn't have understood that - besides the love of my mum and friends - it was the HP fandom that helped me through those terrible days. R.I.P., dear grandpa! Love you forever!   


  


**Chapter 12**

**Tension**

_Ut tensio sic vis_   
(Robert Hooke)   


"Now where to?" asked Draco, fiddling with his fork in a bored sort of way. 

"I'm trying to find out, okay?" snapped Phaedra, focusing her attention on the little golden gadget in her hands. "He was here yesterday, in this very restaurant, that's for sure." 

"But where can they be now?" he pressed. "I'm starting to lose my patience with this wild-goose chase." 

"Then go home to England, no one's making you stay," she replied coolly. 

He muttered something like 'I didn't mean it like that'. 

"You'd better not," Phaedra grunted and placed the Tracker on the white-blue checked tablecloth. "This is pretty useless this way, though." 

"Good that you admit it," Draco remarked. 

She gave him a 'one more snide comment and you'll have to change your name from Draco to Draca' stare. "There's one thing left: we have to ask people whether they've seen them." 

The restaurant owner Nikias approached them with two gyroses. 

"Nik, tell me, have you seen my husband lately?" Phaedra asked. 

"'Course, dear, he was here yesterday evening with his cousin." 

"Cousin? Dudley D…?" Draco started, but Phaedra waved to shut him up. He had obviously not realised that Nikias was talking about Ginny as Harry's 'cousin', not Dudley Dursley. Also, it was pretty new and unusual for him to understand the Greek language – Phaedra had cast the all-language charm on him before they even left Great Britain. 

"Yes, he has a very pretty cousin, I expect you know her, Mrs Creevey," replied Nikias. Now Draco understood that he must have referred to Ginny, because Dudley Dursley (whom he'd seen once on King's Cross) couldn't be defined as pretty at all. But… what had the landlord just called Phaedra? – he frowned. He already opened his mouth to comment on the 'Creevey'- part when Phaedra kicked him on the shin under the table with such force that he bit into his tongue, totally preventing himself from speaking. 

"Of course I know my husband's cousin," smiled the young witch sweetly at Nikias while Draco sat opposite her, cross-eyed with pain. "But you know, Nik, there's a little problem with the girl." 

"Problem?" the restaurateur's eyes widened. "What sort?" 

"Oh," Phaedra sighed with a woebegone expression. "The girl's a bit… dangerous. She was being held in the closed ward of a British wizarding hospital, but she escaped… actually my husband helped her escape," she sighed again so dramatically that it made Draco wonder whether he should trust this woman at all. She was beautiful, but apparently devious and definitely not to be crossed. 

"Colin helped her escape from a lunatic ward?" Nikias furrowed his brow. "That's not like him, the boy seems to have his heart at the right place, I wouldn't think that he'd…" 

"Oh, yes, Colin's heart is definitely at the right place, perhaps too much so… he can be such a softie sometimes, my dear hubby, he obviously couldn't resist his favourite cousin's pleas to get her out of the closed ward… and I fear that he's in danger in her company, her mind could get clouded any moment, and… and…" one single tear ran down Phaedra's cheek. She had some talent for acting, Draco had to give it to her. "That's why I'm so desperate to find them, Nik, should you know anything that might help me with the search, I'd be eternally grateful if you shared it with me." 

"Well," Nikias scratched his jaw," I don't really know where they could've gone, but perhaps the Greek Magical Law Enforcement knows something…" 

"The Magical Law Enforcement?" 

"Yeah, they came here yesterday – well, actually today at dawn – and wanted to arrest your husband. They said he'd killed someone, but of course I don't believe them, Colin's not the type, is he?" replied the restaurant owner. "The only thing I didn't understand was that they were after a bloke called Dursley, I bet they confused the names and wanted to arrest the wrong person…" 

"Right, thank you, Nikias, you've helped a lot," said Phaedra with a grateful smile, but Draco saw that she was very pale. 

"I'm happy to have been of service," grinned the owner, then glanced at Draco with a questioning stare, surely expecting Phaedra to introduce him to her companion. 

Phaedra understood his questioning stare at once. "Oh, this is… Seamus, my husband's cousin, by the way. His _other _cousin. He's helping me to save Colin." 

"Ah, I see. Pleasure, meeting you," said the owner, then headed back into the kitchen. 

"Potter – wanted – for – murder?" Draco whispered delightedly. "That's too good to be true!" 

"Shut up Malfoy or I'll shut you up," hissed the witch, her eyes blazing with fury. 

"Oye, I'm scared now," grimaced Draco, but with his grimace he only tried to hide the fact that he was indeed scared of Phaedra. He had never met a woman so beautiful, determined and ready to beat the crap out of anyone who crossed her. To him she seemed some mixture of old McGonagall, that Mudblood Granger and Xena, Warrior Princess (Draco would never admit to anyone but he was an enthusiastic Xena fan). 

"So, where are we going now, _Mrs Creevey_?" he asked in a sarcastic tone, already seeing his archenemy in jail in his mind's eye. 

"To the Greek Magical Law Enforcement office, certainly," she replied. "And just to make it clear, Malfoy: Harry had every right to kill that bastard who had tortured our daughter to death." 

For a second Draco thought he'd seen a shadow of weakness in her eyes, a trace of pain, but even if it had been there, it was gone before he could properly observe it. "Ah… right. I would have killed the murderer of my kid, too… but it's not bloody likely that I'll ever have a kid." 

"Why not? You'll have your wife back soon, I guarantee you that." 

He waved impatiently. "She's barren." 

"What caused her to be…?" 

"At first I had no idea why she wouldn't get pregnant when I did everything in my power to knock her up," he murmured. "After a while I started to suspect that she might be using contraceptive charms behind my back, but she denied it. So, we went to a mediwizard to check her up and he established that she had had an ovary inflammation in her childhood, probably spent hours in a darn cold lake or something, and it made her infertile." 

"Sorry," replied Phaedra. "C'mon, Draco, let's question the Aurors, shall we?" 

* * * * * 

For a second Ginny didn't know what was happening, but as Harry Apparated out of the room they were sharing in the Hotel Atlantis after remarking that those stupid Death Eaters should have waited a bit before starting this mayhem, Ginny came to the conclusion that she ought to go and see what had happened instead of sitting here and waiting for him to return and carry on where they had left off (i.e. making love to her at last). Also, what if he got into such trouble that he no longer could come back and carry on where they'd left off? No, Ginny definitely couldn't let that happen! 

So, with her wand drawn, she stormed down the stairs, into the entrance hall and saw at once what had caused that loud bang: the glorious chandelier made of shells had crashed down, a huge hole visible on the ceiling where it had hung. 

Harry was already in the middle of a furious duel with four cloaked figures whose hoods had been pushed back very likely by Harry, since Ginny couldn't imagine that Death Eaters would be stupid enough to reveal their faces voluntarily. Strangely Ginny didn't find any of them familiar, none of them could have been present in the Department of Mysteries seven years earlier, because then she would have recognised them. Probably these were new Death Eaters, Voldemort must have needed to recruit new supporters after most of his old ones had ended up in Azkaban and only a couple of them ever managed to break free. Either way, it was lucky that Harry had magicked his scar to become invisible after the fiasco in the Circle of Hermes headquarters, because undoubtedly any Death Eater would have recognised him if he had had the scar. 

One of the Death Eaters sent a purple coloured curse at Harry who jumped behind the Receptionist's desk which exploded into smithereens, no longer giving him shelter. Two other Death Eaters aimed Full-Body-Bind jinxes at him, but he shouted _Expelliarmus!_ at the same moment, ridding one of them of his wand, ducking the jinx. The fourth Death Eater had somehow managed to get behind Harry's back without him noticing (which was remarkable with Harry's special, 360 degree vision) and was just about to Stun him when Ginny decided to use her old, but always successful Bat-Bogey-Hex on him. 

"Thanks, Gin," Harry flashed her with a quick grin before jumping out of the way of a Reductor Curse. 

The fourth Death Eater stumbled across the room, bat-ear-like things flapping on his face. 

"Hey, that's gross," came a voice from the left. Ginny squinted in that direction, keeping an eye on Harry's battle at the same time, and saw that several curious people's heads were poking out of the restaurant part of the hotel. The remark must have come from one of the sirens who were standing in the doorway, seemingly enjoying the show. 

Ginny didn't have time to ask why they weren't helping Harry against the Death Eaters, because one of the cloaked figures swept across the hall like a rocket, almost colliding with her. She crouched down in the last instant before the 'rocket Death Eater' flew headlong into a huge pot-plant that immediately wound its long leaves around his body, its red buds opening like mouths as it started madly snogging all possible body-parts of the unfortunate Death Eater. 

"Well done!" yelled one of the sirens at Harry who had obviously turned the Death Eater into the human rocket. 

However Harry had more important things to pay attention to: one of the two remaining Death Eaters sent another Reductor Curse at him, he ducked, but this time, with the Receptionist's desk destroyed, there wasn't any object left in the curse's way, nothing from which it could have rebound or what it could have smashed, so it swooped directly at the huge wall-length window beyond which there was nothing but the sea… 

With an alarming crash the window-glass exploded, allowing the water flood into the hall like some tidal wave. 

Ginny heard screams from all over the hall – screams of the people watching the scene from the restaurant and of people standing on the stairs – probably even the Death Eaters had screamed, she couldn't tell. 

All she knew was that suddenly a _Tempus Glacietur! _issued from Harry's mouth a second after the window broke and the tide stopped in the middle of the hall, frozen in time. Everyone who looked at the 'petrified' waves could spot several sardines, plaice, eels and medusas in it. 

The water wasn't frozen in the physical sense of the word, nor were the fish in it literally frozen, they were just stopped in time, not moving in any direction. 

Up till now Ginny had thought that one could only freeze time for people, but now it seemed so that you could freeze practically anything in time, even the forces of nature… 

Everyone who had been screaming just a second earlier, now gasped with awe. 

"That's it, Big Boy!" cheered one of the brunette sirens, making Ginny want to wind her long brown hair around her neck and throttle her with it. 

The two Death Eaters who were still able to fight used this moment of panic and awe to fetch their disabled buddies and Harry was a nanosecond late with his _Petrificus Totalus_, because they must have grabbed a Portkey that transported them out of Atlantis. 

"Bugger," Harry growled, then looked around to see everyone gaping at the water that was still hanging in midair, wanting to flow further into the hall, but unable to do so. "Oh, yeah," he flicked his wand and the broken windows got restored to their original state, separating the sea outside from those few waves that had managed to break into the building. A second flick with his wand and the 'frozen' waves evaporated as though they had never been there. The fish in it dropped to the floor, making a bloke - peering out of the restaurant, wearing a cook's hat - beam and rub his hands greedily together. 

At that second cheering erupted all over the hall, the onlookers applauded and whistled admiringly. The receptionist, who had witnessed the events from behind a Corinth column now came forward to shake Harry's hand so frantically that Harry thought he'd rip it off. 

"You were wonderful," said one of the sirens in a sugar-sweet voice as she stepped to Harry. 

"Exactly as wonderful as in other things," added another siren. 

"Yes," nodded the third one, slipping an arm around Harry's waist. "And we'd gladly do it again with you…" 

This was the last straw for Ginny who burst out like a volcano: "Why not say directly to his face that you want to shag him senseless???" 

"Pardon me?" one of the sirens frowned at Ginny. "What do you mean by that?" 

"Why, wasn't that what you did to him last time?" snapped Ginny, not even glancing at Harry whose face was turning redder by the second, aware that every single 'spectator' of this battle with the Death Eaters was now listening curiously to their conversation. 

"What?" blinked the tallest of the three sirens. "All we did with him was sing." 

"Sing, eh?" Ginny scowled at them. "You seduced him with your song, I presume." 

"Oh, well… we tried," admitted the youngest-looking of the three, "but he refused. Honestly, he's been the first person to turn us down since Odysseus… all we managed to do was enchant him, but not even in his enchanted state was he willing to…" 

"…and that's why we just sang with him," explained the tallest one. 

"Sang _with _me, not _to_ me?" Harry gaped. 

"Yup," grinned the youngest siren. "You behaved like a drunken man under our spell, and what does a drunken man do? He sings." 

"You don't mean we were…" Harry began. 

"…singing 'What shall we do with a drunken sailor' in a quartet? Yes. That's exactly what we were doing, and you have a very pleasant baritone, if I might add," came the answer. 

His mouth agape, Harry glanced at Ginny, who was equally nonplussed. Suddenly Harry's mouth tucked into a wide grin. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it, Gin!" he grabbed the flabbergasted girl and pulled her into an enthusiastic embrace. Ginny grinned into his neck and had to restrain herself from doing a new version of the 'he got off' dance, singing 'he didn't shag them' instead. It was a relief for both of them. Ginny had been annoyed enough by the fact that Harry had had this Linda (who moreover happened to be Voldemort's daughter) and Phaedra, so she felt utterly relieved that at least these three scarlet women hadn't managed to get into Harry's pants. 

"It's a shame, though, that they took the other two with them," remarked the youngest siren. "The poor Aphrodite Flower lost its snogging partner." 

Some of the onlookers burst into laughter and squinted at the pot-plant that seemed to be downright sulky now.   
  


When Harry and Ginny went to sleep that night it was already three in the morning, and neither of them felt like doing anything else but sleep. 

"I was wondering why those Death Eaters exploded the chandelier, you know," Ginny said, slipping under the covers in their room. 

"They were looking for this," Harry pulled something out of his shirt. "I bet it was hidden in the ceiling, above the chandelier. I snatched it from one of the Death Eaters, he won't notice that it's gone missing until he gets back to England. Imagine Voldemort's face when he gets to know!" he smirked delightedly. 

"But… what's this?" Ginny's eyes widened, looking at some parchment he was holding. "Could this be the one about…?" 

"Must be," he nodded, rolling the parchment out on the bed. 

In ancient Greek letters a charm was described on the parchment – a very complex one. 

"And one would think you'd have to eat ambrosia to become immortal," Harry murmured. 

"Holy Snitch, Harry, had You-Know-Who got this, he'd have gained immortality!" Ginny breathed. 

"Yes," he replied sternly. "And we have to see to it that he'll never ever get it." 

"Destroy it?" she suggested. 

"Exactly," he nodded, levitating the parchment into midair and saying _Incendio!_

As the parchment dissolved into ashes that gathered into a small heap on the moss-carpet, so dissolved Voldemort's hopes for immortality.   
  


Before Harry extinguished the candles, Ginny spoke up, yawning: 

"There's still something I don't understand." 

"What?" he asked gently, lying down into the huge shell-bed next to her. 

"There were so many people around, and they did nothing, just watched you fight. Why?" 

"I reckon they were like the average Greek wizards: they hate fighting." 

"Hate fighting?" 

"Yeah," he slipped an arm around her and nuzzled his face into her hair. "Greek wizards are friendly… usually too friendly to fancy a fight. Of course you can find some who don't say no to a good scrap, but those are the outlaws, the Aurors and the members of the Circle. The rest are too… soft." 

"What about those sirens?" she muttered. 

"What about them?" 

"Couldn't _they _have helped?" 

"Not likely. Sirens don't have magical abilities in the same way as wizards do. They can bewitch you with their song, but that's all they are capable of." 

"And yet they didn't manage to bewitch you," she murmured in a satisfied way. 

"Perhaps because I didn't want to cheat on my wife…" he replied. 

"Aren't you cheating on your wife now – with me?" she asked quietly. 

"I think I am… but I don't feel guilty at all… weird, isn't it?" 

"No… it isn't weird at all," she replied and fell asleep in his arms. 

* * * * * 

In the morning they managed to wake up early enough to reach the Hippobus just when it was about to detach its tube from the hotel. 

"Wait!" Harry shouted, running towards the tube with Ginny in his wake. 

"Almost late again, Neville?" grinned Megara as they stumbled through the tube, into the bus. 

"Almost, but not quite. Morning, Meg," Harry panted. 

"Heard you were a real hero, saving the hotel in the night," said the conductor with a sweet smile. 

"Had to save it, if they were stupid enough to build the hotel with breakable windows," replied Harry. "Honestly, one would think they have enough sense to use curse-proof glass." 

"I've heard that the hotel's owner was had by the builders. They sold him glass that allegedly was unbreakable, but it turned out that it wasn't. Now he's really in trouble, having to have the windows replaced by unbreakable glass. Oh, Neville, had you not been there… you were so brave!" said Megara, batting her thick, black eyelashes so rapidly that they became a blur and Harry started to feel dizzy, looking at them. He cast a sideways glance at Ginny to see whether she got annoyed by Megara's coquettish behaviour, but this time he couldn't see any trace of jealously on her freckly features. 

Strangely to Ginny, she didn't feel jealousy of any sort now. Only hours before Harry had told her he still loved her, and the conversation they had shared in the shell-seat filled her with a feeling of safety and contentment, and as she thought it over, suddenly her jealousy seemed silly and pointless. No matter whom Harry had slept with or flirted with, or sung 'What shall we do with a drunken sailor' with… the only thing that counted was that Harry loved _her,_ and no one else. 

Presenting the conductor witch with her most brilliant smile, Ginny went to look for two seats, her soul as light as a feather. True, Harry's daunting tale about Voldemort's trap and blackmail should have dispirited her, and the ever-present danger of her father getting killed by Draco should have darkened her mood, but despite all the hardships she couldn't help but beam, radiating her happiness at every single passenger. 

"You're beautiful today," Harry whispered into her neck after they took their places. 

"Am I?" she smiled coyly at him, making him want to kiss her until she couldn't breathe. However, with everyone looking at them, he had to control himself. So he only pulled Ginny into an embrace and kissed the top of her head as she bent it on his shoulder. 

With the sulky conductor, their Hippobus sped towards the island of Delos. 

* * * * * 

Around ten o'clock they arrived at Delos, and the only passengers to disembark were Harry and Ginny. The Hippobus continued its way southwards towards the island of Paros. 

Delos was a dreary isle with no buildings, nothing whatsoever, but it was a popular meditating place. If someone needed peace, they came to Delos. 

"Beautiful," said Ginny, gazing at the sea as the sun's bright morning rays danced on the azure waves, making them glitter like myriads of sapphires. 

"Uh-huh," Harry nodded, shielding his eyes against the sun. 

"Come to think of it, I never got my sunglasses, sun hat and suntan lotion you promised me back in England," Ginny remarked with a lopsided grin. "Look at my skin, it got red and sore on the way to Delphi," she held out her bare arm for him to see that it was indeed pinker than usual. He hadn't noticed it underwater, but now, in the bright sunshine it was clearly visible. 

"Should I kiss it better?" he wriggled his eyebrows. 

"That would mean a _lot _of kissing, my arms, my neck, my face, my legs… they're all sunburnt," she replied mischievously.   
"No problem," he pulled her to himself. "I'll kiss all of them better." 

"Before you do so, I'd like to take a bath, I feel filthy. The last time I took a shower was in Budapest. I want to swim a bit in the sea. Turn around, will you?" 

"Turn around?" he blinked. "What for?" 

"Because I want to undress… completely," she said and Harry couldn't decide what her red complexion was due to: the sun's rays or embarrassment. He also couldn't understand why she'd feel embarrassed about getting undressed in front of him – she had been prancing around in nothing but a camisole in front of him when they had been in Budapest. Then, if the Death Eaters hadn't interrupted their little make-out, they surely would have got further and she would have undressed or would have let him undress her… so why did she demur now? 

"Why, do you think I haven't peeked through your clothes already?" he said with an innocent expression. 

"Harry Potter! You dared…?" 

"No, just wanted to see your reaction," he winked at her. 

"Veeery funny," she shook her head. "Turn around, please." 

"I can turn around if you like… but I can see through the back of my head, you know," Harry reminded her. When she responded with a scowl, he held up his hands in self-defence. "Okay. I'll close my eyes and promise I won't peek." 

"Thanks," she smiled and began to undress. 

No matter how hard it was for Harry to not peek, he obediently kept his eyes shut, but inside his head he could pretty well see what he very likely would have seen in reality. Sometimes it was nice to have a vivid imagination, he told himself. 

After ten or so minutes of waiting, Harry heard some splashing and the sand squelching under two wet feet, indicating that Ginny had returned. 

She snatched her wand off the ground and pointed it at her clothes with a _Scourgify!,_ then put them on. 

"May I open my eyes?" he asked. 

"Yeah," she replied and flopped down onto the sand next to him. 

"Okay," he flicked his wand and in the next instant she was wearing sunglasses, a sun hat and even a beach umbrella had appeared above her. 

"What's this all for? Picnic?" she enquired, peering at him over the rim of her sunglasses. 

"No, I'm going for a swim, either, and just wanted to make sure you didn't get a serious sunburn…" Harry replied and unbuttoned his shirt. The shirt landed on the sand, followed by socks, and a pair of jeans. As Harry started to pull down his boxers, she spoke up: 

"Er… should I maybe turn around?" 

"If you don't want to, you don't need to," he shrugged and proceeded with ridding himself of his last piece of clothing.   
Ginny felt heat creep up her cheeks and was sure that she must look ruby red, even despite the shadow cast on her by the beach umbrella. 

"Would you Scourgify my clothes while I'm gone? Women can do it much better than men," he said, apparently not noticing her abashed stare. 

"Huh?" she shuddered. "Er… 'course. Uh… why are you taking your wand into the sea?" she called after him as he waded into the water. 

"To scare away the medusas," he replied over his shoulder. 

"Medusas? You could have warned me, you know, then I would have taken my wand!" Ginny shouted indignantly, but she wasn't sure he still heard her, because he had already dived into the water and disappeared under the surface. 

After half a minute she started to get worried, because he still hadn't reappeared… what if he had drowned? A distant memory came to her mind: she had once before waited for him exactly like this, hoping to see him resurface, praying that he'd come out of the water alive… 

This time she didn't need to wait for him for over an hour, he came to the surface after a minute, but it had been just as bad to wait. Now that she saw him float on the surface on his back, idly moving his legs to propel himself slowly forward, she thought how stupid she had been to think that he'd drowned. He seemed totally healthy, as water-drops coursed down his tanned chest… 

Ginny gulped as she realised that his chest wasn't exactly that particular region of his body that most attracted her attention.   
Even under the beach umbrella, she started to feel extremely hot. She had never ever felt anything like this before… back at Hogwarts when she had become Harry's girlfriend she had been too young to feel real desire, and with Draco all she felt was repulsion at the sight of his naked body. Not that Draco hadn't been attractive, oh surely he was, just not for her. She felt as though she had suddenly become a woman in these last four days with Harry. She was no longer the innocent young girl who had been going out with him, not even the 'let's-get-it-over-with' type of frigid ice queen she had been with her husband… she really felt a woman now, a woman who longed to join him in the water and make love to him until all the medusas fled panic-stricken into more peaceful waters. 

Suddenly Harry turned to his stomach and started swimming towards the coast. Ginny immediately diverted her stare and pretended to be staring up at the brightly coloured beach umbrella. 

"Haven't you Scourgified my clothes?" he asked when he reached her and his dirty, sweaty, curse-scorched pile of clothes. 

"Oh, sorry, forgot," she muttered, gazing determinedly at the umbrella, because she feared that if she shifted her stare to him, she'd lose control and then who knows when they'd find that Row of Gods? 

"Forgot?" he shot her an amused glance. "Why, what else has been on your mind?" 

"Nothing," Ginny replied in an unconvincing voice, then pointed her wand at his clothes: "_Scourgify!_" 

"Thanks," he said and quickly dressed up – to Ginny's great relief. "Got to be going if we want to find that Row of Gods any time soon, don't you think?" 

"Yes, definitely," she nodded and accepted the hand offered her to pull her off the ground. "Where should we start?" 

"Well, the island isn't that big, is it? If I were in the Greek gods' place, I'd hide my secret place somewhere among those rocks," he pointed at a rocky hill standing at the centre of the island, and they set off towards it.   
  


**A/N2**: no cliffie this time, aren't you proud of me? ;) Don't worry, you'll get a cliffie in the next chapter - and in the next after that, and in the next after that... LOL. 

_enna seawave_: the Death Eaters were sent there by Voldemort. 

_Zenon Lee_: I didn't make up the Hippocampuses, I think they were mentioned in Fantastic Beasts. I'll see whether I'll draw a Hippocampus one day. If I do, I'll tell you :) I don't know whether to believe in Atlantis or not... I'd like to believe in it, because it sounds so cool and dreamy :) 

_Wizzabee_: I'm so glad you think I can describe things in a beautiful way, it's a high praise for a non-native speaker of English! :D Thanks! 

_K. C. Hunter:_ so, are you going to do six years of studying at college before you get your bachelor's degree? Wow, that's quite a lot! Here in Hungary in a college you've got to study 3-3,5 years, in a university 4-5 years. I think that only the medical and the juristic universities last for 6 years. Voldemort as a _loving _grandpa? Hell, no! He was only joking about being a loving grandpa, he doesn't like the child a bit! Megara was Hercules' wife, I don't know anyone else by the name Megara. 

_hypnotic-babe_: I have no idea what's up with ffnet, last time I tried to review someone ffnet said that I had already done so... I hope they'll correct these errors, because they are really annoying! Thanks for reviewing in another chapter, though! 

_Mlle Katie Bell:_ you clever, clever girl! You can be very proud of yourself! 

_Mistri, Cho's observer_: thanks for the information on Halys! 

_Wood's secret lover:_ oh yeah, it should have been 2 galleons and 8 sickles, I didn't think of converting them into galleons, sorry. I think even JKR herself forgot to convert 17 sickles into one galleon in PS/SS. Yes, you'll see Dedalus Diggle in the fic, but he isn't related to Deadalus, builder of the maze. I only think that JKR named him after the builder of the maze, like he named Amos Diggory after a prophet from the Bible or Narcissa after Narcissus (a Greek mythological person who fell in love with himself). JKR just loves naming people after mythological persons. Icarus was Deadalus' son, not nephew. I don't know whom Deadalus accidentally killed, but Icarus died when he flew too close to the sun. The sirens will pop up later as well. 

_Sparkle Tangerine_: I'm afraid you'll have to wait quite a while before H and G manage to sort out the problems and live happily together... Glad you like Amrita's name. What does it mean? Weeeeeeell... someone managed to find it out... but if you can't, then you'll get to know in chapter 19, I don't want to reveal it just yet. 

_figgiesblazin:_ had I known when your birthday was, then I would have dedicated the last chapter to you. You should have told me :) Happy belated birthday! 

_Paige_: do you still think Ginny is a pansy? See, Harry didn't shag the sirens, so no reason to say 'ew' ;) 

_TrixieFirecracker_: no, I haven't seen Blue Mountain, what sort of movie is it? Are you teaching English? That's cool. It must mean you are at least 20, am I right? Dunno if you've read my note at the top, but if not, then please read, for an English teacher is the perfect person to help me. And no, you aren't bothering me with your questions at all :) 

_Katrina Littlebird_: excuse me for misspelling your name! Yes, Amrita does mean something, but I won't tell what, till chapter 19 *bad Agi, very bad Agi!* Glad you liked the description of the underwater city :) I'll ask Harry some day to take me there and you may come, too ;) (but I'll share a room with Harry, not you!) *Ginny points her wand at Agi, muttering something about killing her* 

_hi-voltage_: glad you like my Harry sketch :) 

_kryptKnight:_ no, Beaky won't escape! 

_Mage_: I hope you won't totally lose faith in the story, it'll get much better soon. And no, Harry won't kill Voldie for quite a while. 

_carameLisSa_: glad you gave my fic a chance! Don't think that I like all H/G fics, actually most of them are quite lame, I agree with you on that. As a friend of mine described fics on a onetime H/G site: "all that Harry and Ginny do is chase each other". Under such circumstances no wonder that many people had enough of H/G, I'm not blaming you. And no, I never said I hated Draco, I said I hated Draco/Ginny. I sort of like Draco, as long as he doesn't get together with Ginny ;) It always makes me happy when D/G fans tell me that they don't hate H/G in my fics, thanks! :) 

_Hedwig55_: no, Ginny won't find out about the pregnancy in chapter 15, only several chapters later. You'll see what will happen when Phaedra and Draco find H and G. It'll be interesting, and you'll hate me for it, LOL. Thanks for reviewing on SIYE as well, it was nice getting a review there, since people barely comment on that site. I have half a mind to stop posting the fic there. 

_ruffled owl_: actually I think that JKR took the hippocampuses from Greek mythology, she didn't make them up. And no, I don't see Ginny wanting an emerald ring either, but since Harry asked her what sort of jewel she wanted, emerald was the most sensible option ;) 

_Elfy19_: you'll see Cho once, but she won't have a single line, she'll just be around. I dislike her, not hate her. Before OotP I used to hate her, but not anymore. She's too much of a petty character to hate. 

_heavenly182angel:_ originally Phaedra didn't mean whore, Phaedra in Greek means 'glowing'. There was a queen called Phaedra in Greek mythology, and she fell in love with her stepson, perhaps even tried to seduce him, I don't remember anymore, I read it way too long ago. So the reason why people refer to whores as 'phaedras' must be because Queen Phaedra was lusting for her stepson, but for me the only thing that matters is that originally her name didn't mean anything wrong, it meant something beautiful. 

_C-chan1_: happy belated birthday! :) Dobby snogged Dumbledore? That's nothing! Once I read a fic in which Harry woke up to a very unusual feeling, only to see that Dobby was giving him a blow-job! Nothing can cap it! Yep, mach schnell means hurry up. Mach los? That must be a slang, sorry I can't really tell you what it means :( I've never played a Quidditch video game yet. 

_Imailil2sarcastic_: you are one clever person! *applauds* 

_Amanda Saturn Venus_: are you Portugese, by any chance? Anyway, the name Linda originates from ancient German (not today's German), and it does mean snake (at least according to a book on name-origins). 

_Myr Halcyon_: are you taking Greek? That's cool! Congrats on your good grades! 

_Inken_: half an hour is just enough for a quick shag ;) Yes, perhaps the H/G thing happened too quickly, but I took it slightly back in this chapter, and they will be 'circling around each other' for another three chapters before anything happens between them. Also, you know my way of writing, I'm rather a plot-person than a 'slow-development-of-characters-and-relationships' person (I remember that you had the same problem in Enemy, I just don't remember what exactly it was, but you said it happened way too quickly). Arabella and Zsenya are the perfect persons for slow character and relationship developments, but I'm not. If I had let H/G's relationship develop as slowly as A and Zs did, then the story would have about 80 long and boring chapters. Yes, Amrita's name means something, but not telling what yet ;) According to a book on name-origins, Linda means snake in ancient German, not today's German. Perhaps it meant snake about 1500-2000 years ago. I know that Schlange is snake in German - LOL, that word always makes me think of Raiders of the Lost Ark: Indian Jones says 'ich hasse Schlangen' - I think I've watched Indi too much in German ;) I took crosscultural communications, and we were taught that Germans liked being on time - if that isn't true, then blame my professor! 

_Indigo Ziona_: Harry's dream was real this once - poor lil Amrita :( 

_iNiGmA_: of course you can put this fic on your site, along with the others :) 

_Altec_: I hope your computer is feeling better now :) I haven't written anything original for over 4 years now. The last original story I wrote was a sci-fi-humor-romance story, but I wrote it in Hungarian, and I'm not planning to translate it into English. 

_MilesFromNormal_: Draco and Phaedra are in Athens, as you've seen :) 

_Romina_: glad you like my art :) I'd like to go to Atlantis, too! 

_ayse_: yes, that part's left for you to wonder until around the end of the story ;) Draco and Phaedra will find Harry and Ginny. What will happen then? Wait it out and you'll see. And you can curse me then, LOL. It won't be gory, and Harry won't be cocky, but it will be cruel from a certain PoV. Beware. I'm evil. 

_TigHan_: clever thinking! :) The Book of Athena will appear again, later. 

_Shaucker_: I'm glad you managed to warm up to this fic easier than to others :) I must admit that I don't really know what you meant by Harry and Ginny being Hemingway type hero and heroine... the only Hemingway books I've read are Old man and the sea and For whom the bell tolls, and I barely remember them... care to explain? 

_Rayssa Radcliffe: _they won't have a chance till chapter 15... 

_maureen_: I'm so happy to see you again! I'm always glad when an old reviewer appears after months, when I already think they have forgotten about me! Glad you haven't, and glad you like the fic so far! :D And thanks for your praise of my arts, there are loads of new ones since GTnet closed, dunno if you've seen them, but they are on phoenixtears, deviantart and in my yahoo group. 

_Cloudzi1_: the doors only dry up the superfluous liquid from the people's clothes, faces and hair, but they don't dry their hair so much that it becomes prone to breaking. These doors work just like the ones in the Gungan city in Phantom Menace, so perhaps you should ask George Lucas about their functioning :) 

_Elizabeth Darcy_: I named Amrita very much deliberately and I'm aware what her name means. Some readers have been wondering it, but it's important that I don't explain it to them yet ;) 

_frogilicious_: perhaps Atlantis isn't THAT deep in the ocean, so people wouldn't die there if they swam there. The Death Eaters came by a portkey and left by a portkey. Yes, I think people can Apparate into Atlantis. Wow, you still remember the snowflake curtain? That's flattering :) About the prophecy - who knows? *enigmatic smile* 

_Jaquelyne_: I'm glad that your friend (whoever they were) recommended my fic to you, and I'm even happier that you like it :) 

_blauebaerin_: the shamed one isn't Ginny but Harry. Why would Ginny be shamed? Harry feels ashamed of everything he has done so far, not Ginny... The ritual - well, don't worry, Voldie isn't raping the child, he's evil but not a pedofile pervert. Deadalus, according to Greek mythology, indeed built the maze. King Minos entrusted him to do it and even kept him captive on Crete after he built it. That's why Deadalus built the wings for himself and Icarus - to escape from King Minos' palace. Yeah, perhaps some parts of my fic are like a gag, but believe me, there will be parts when you'll rather feel like crying. I started to cry when I wrote one certain scene around the end of the fic... it was heart-wrenching! George Lucas tends to wear flannel shirts, at least whenver I saw him on TV, he wore a flannel shirt. Some people in the SW fandom call him Great Man in Flannel :) Orlando Bloom as Paris? Oooooh, can't wait for that movie, then! :D Who will play Menelaos? And Helen? And Odysseus? Achilles? Okay, sorry, you surely don't know all ;) 

_apple-pie_: killing Harry AGAIN? Hey, I haven't killed him yet! You'll see what the Row of Gods is in chapters 13-15. I don't know whether Atlantis existed, but I like to believe that it did :) 

_Pascale_: thanks for taking the time and reviewing! :) Why would Voldie attack France? Because I love France (especially EuroDisney) too much and I thought it'd be veeery dramatic if the Dark Lord attacked such a cool place. 

Also thanks to: _goldenstar555, Chelsea of the Moor, Houou Kazoku-Kaga, Jennie Chang, sweet775, Embyr Black, funjoker7, Hermione We@s!ey, Princess Ginny, moony*padfoot, Kit Cloudkicker, rebkos, dementorchic, Noemi, Any last requests?, Tap Dancing Widow_


	13. The Row of Gods

**A/N: **I'd like to thank you all for your kind words and condolences. They were really touching. 

This chapter is dedicated to moony*padfoot, who has recently turned 14. Happy belated birthday, moony*padfoot! 

S'ry about the crazy Voldie in this chapter - I just felt like making fun of him :D   


**Chapter 13**

**The Row of Gods**

  
  


_"I'm not against the police, I'm just afraid of them."_   
(Alfred Hitchcock)   


"You idiots! You pathetic, snivelling pieces of flobberworm excrement!" cursed the Dark Lord. His Death Eaters retreated several steps, fearing to get the Cruciatus from their master, whom they had never seen this angry before. Voldemort was practically seething, it was a wonder that no fumes were coming out of his ears… His usually pasty complexion coloured to bright pink with rage. 

"How could you… how could you have lost the parchment???" he spat at the four Death Eaters he had sent to Atlantis. 

"My lord…" one of the junior Death Eaters spoke up, his voice wavering. 

"What?" Voldemort barked. 

"My lord, the parchment got stolen from us." 

"Stolen? STOLEN???" Voldemort's voice rose in pitch. 

"Y…yes, my lord," stammered another Death Eater who had been given a Bat-Bogey Hex by Ginny. His face was still red and sore from all the batwings that had been flapping on it for several hours before Bellatrix managed to rid him of them. "There was… there was this mad stranger who attacked us… We had barely exploded the ceiling above the chandelier when he was already there, hexing the crap out of us… I'm sorry, my lord, I don't know what sort of demon that was, but I have never seen a man fight like this. He even stopped the water when Wayne broke that huge window…" 

"…it was amazing, my lord," agreed the Death Eater called Wayne. "I have never seen somebody freeze anything like that – the water didn't even really freeze, just… just stopped and started to hang in mid-air…" 

"Idiots," growled Voldemort, throwing himself into his throne-like armchair. "The bloke used the Time Freezing charm." 

"Time Freezing?" many of the Death Eaters raised their eyebrows. 

Voldemort rolled his eyes (as much as one can roll snake-like eyes). "You call yourselves my servants and you don't even know what the Time Freezing charm is…" he turned to Bellatrix. "Tell me Bella, that at least you know what it is." 

The woman shifted nervously. "I'm deeply ashamed, my lord, but I don't know. Never heard of it." 

Voldemort waved in a resigned way. "I just hoped that at least some of you might have picked up a Dark Arts book at some time or other. Apparently I was wrong. But I can't put up with having such pathetic, blundering fools for servants. And I already know what I will do with you…" his eyes narrowed and a derisive smirked spread on his face. 

The four Death Eaters who had screwed up in Atlantis, were now trembling from head to toe, expecting the Dark Lord to say _Crucio!_. However, the words that left their master's mouth appalled all of them: 

"Set books." 

"Excuse us, my lord?" 

"I said set books, Rodolphus, are you this slow on the uptake?" snapped Voldemort. "I'm going to dictate a list of Dark Arts books that each of you has to read… yes, even you Goyle, and if you have difficulties with reading, ask Macnair to read them out for you." 

Macnair, who wasn't exactly famous for his intellect and hadn't taken a book into his hand since graduating from Hogwarts, wore a very frightened expression. 

"What sort of set books have you in mind, my lord?" enquired Bellatrix. 

"For example…" Voldemort seemed to cast his mind around, searching for titles, "…_Extreme Evilness for Everyone _by Ethan Emeric, _Horrible Hexes and Catastrophic Curses_ by Phineas Nigellus, and my favourite book: _Wicked Warlock's World _by William Whittby. You have a month to read them, and I'll check what you have memorised from them."   
The Death Eaters exchanged sour looks (Goyle's mouth was hanging open as he was trying to understand what Voldemort had told them). 

The Dark Lord turned back to those four who had been in Atlantis: 

"I presume you cannot tell me who robbed you of the parchment?" 

"No, my lord," they answered in faltering voices. 

"But you will find out for me, won't you?" Voldemort said in a fatherly tone, which was quite remarkable, coming from him. 

"Er…" the Death Eaters looked at each other helplessly. "H… how are we supposed to find out, my lord?" 

"Fools!" Voldemort jumped up from his seat, his complexion reddening even more. "That bastard who has the parchment now, must have been a guest at the hotel, mustn't he?" The Death Eaters nodded. "Then he must have registered at the Reception, don't you think?" The Death Eaters nodded again. "Then…?" 

"Aha!" the bloke who had been snogged senseless by the Aphrodite Flower yelled as the realisation struck him. "He gave his name to the Receptionist! We only have to go back and persuade the Receptionist to tell us his name!" 

"Brilliant," Voldemort sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Wormtail, bring Amrita!" 

"But… but… my lord," stammered Pettigrew. "She isn't supposed to be needed till next week…" 

"I know!" the Dark Lord barked. "But all this shouting has drained me… I need her right now!" 

"Y… yes, my lord," replied Pettigrew and walked out of the room, wringing his hands. How was he to explain to the child why her 'services' were needed a week earlier than she had expected? The little one will surely be scared to death and won't stop sobbing… Wormtail heaved a deep sigh and entered the kid's room to find her sitting on a moth-eaten rug, drawing something. 

"What is this, Amrita?" he sank down next to her, looking at her drawing. 

"My family," she answered. "You like it?" 

Peter took the crumpled sheet of paper into his hands to examine a six-year-old's doodle that depicted a little figure with curly red-gold locks in the middle, on her right stood a taller man with dark hair and glasses, and on her left stood a small, very ugly figure whom he couldn't identify. Her grandfather was very noticeably missing from the picture. 

"It's very nice, dear," Peter said. 

"Is this what Daddy looks like?" Amrita asked, pointing at her 'father'. 

"Yes, about," Peter smiled. 

He had told the child about her parents when she had asked about them, but he had made her swear she'd never mention it to Grandpa Voldemort. Surely the Dark Lord wouldn't be too happy if he got to know that his servant was describing his archenemy to his granddaughter as some sort of a hero who kept thwarting Voldemort's attempts to rule over the world, making Amrita clasp her hands in delight and say 'Daddy must be great, I'm so happy he doesn't like Grandpa either!'   
Amrita had promised Wormtail to keep her mouth shut, and added that she didn't feel like talking to her grandpa about anything, so she surely wouldn't talk to him about her father. Thus Wormtail had kept telling the child stories about her mum and dad in secret. Amrita had always listened to his tales about Brave Hero Harry wide-eyed, and kept asking: 'if Dad's such a brave man, who's saved the world from Grandpa so many times, then why doesn't he save _me_?' 

To such questions Peter didn't know what to answer, so whenever Amrita happened to ask such things, he changed the conversation with jokes he remembered from his childhood – James and Sirius had told him and Remus enough jokes to last a lifetime. 

As long as Amrita was this young and easy to influence, Peter could direct their discussions if they got awkward for him, but he didn't dare imagine how things would turn when the child grew older, cleverer and more defiant… perhaps she would not leave him alone until he properly answered her questions? 

Well, time will tell, he thought as he stared at the drawing. 

"Who's this man on your left, my dear?" he asked, pointing at the ugly figure. 

"That's you, Wormie," Amrita replied, beaming. "Look, he's balding just like you." 

Wormtail felt his mouth tuck into a wide grin. The little one definitely had no talent for drawing, but she had drawn him into the picture of her 'family'. He had to blink back a tear. This child loved him, as much as a child who had grown up among Death Eaters could love someone. None of the other Death Eaters had ever cared for her, it had been Peter who had looked after her from the day she was born. He had changed her nappies, fed her from a baby's bottle, sung her lullabies in his totally out-of-tune voice… And he never understood why he didn't find this job humiliating. Any other Death Eater would have abandoned Voldemort if the Dark Lord had burdened them with the role of a babysitter, but not Peter. 

He had been there when Linda had given birth and died even before she could take her daughter into her arms; he had heard the pitiful cry of the newborn who had become an orphan with a dead mother and a father whom she'd never get to know… Peter had taken pity on the baby. 

Sometimes he wondered what sort of life she would have had with Harry Potter… He was sure that it would have been better for her than living with Grandpa Voldemort… even the foulest, least-caring father would have treated her better than the Dark Lord, and Harry Potter surely wouldn't have been a bad father, would he? 

As a Death Eater, Wormtail was supposed to hate his master's greatest enemy, yet he didn't feel like hating him. Harry Potter had never harmed him, on the contrary – if it hadn't been for Harry, Peter would have died at the hand of Remus and Sirius long ago. 

He wondered what Harry Potter would say if he got to know what sort of evil things Voldemort was doing to his daughter…   
His heart sank as he remembered why he had come here in the first place. 

"Amrita, dear… your grandfather wishes to see you." 

He felt as though someone had stabbed him in the chest with a dagger as he watched the expression of utter terror spread on the child's lovely face, her huge green eyes widening with fear, her mouth opening with a silent scream. At that moment Wormtail thought how much he hated Voldemort… 

* * * * * 

"Stupid, stupid Police!" cursed Phaedra as she and Draco left the Auror Headquarters in Athens. The wizarding Police couldn't provide them with any information about Harry, whom Phaedra carefully referred to as 'the chap who killed that Sicilian', not knowing which name/pseudonym of Harry's the Aurors knew. It wouldn't have been wise of her to ask about Harry Potter when the Aurors knew him as Colin Creevey or Dudley Dursley… it was the best not to mention names at all. 

However, it turned out that the Aurors knew her husband as Dudley Dursley and 'Dudley' had managed to escape from them. Deep down Phaedra felt some sort of pride that her husband had managed to flee from the Greek Magical Law Enforcement, but it also annoyed her that they had no idea where 'Dudley' was to be found. Something told Phaedra that Harry was no longer in Athens, but she had absolutely no clue where he could be, then. 

"Yeah, I share your opinion," Draco murmured. "I hate Aurors. My father was killed by one of them." 

"Oh, sorry," she said. 

"…not that my father was such a wonderful man," he continued. "I didn't like him either." 

"Well, you don't exactly strike me as someone who can like _anyone_," she remarked. 

"I love my wife," Draco replied under his breath. 

Phaedra shot him a slightly incredulous look, but he ignored it. 

"Anyway, what took you all night to talk with the Chief Auror?" 

"Oh, you know, bureaucracy… they're damn slow," she shrugged. "Why, was ickle Draco bored?" 

"No, some Auror came to play chess with me," he drawled. "I beat him, he was a pathetic player. I was just annoyed that we wasted three precious hours giving your dratted husband a chance to start… or continue frolicking with my wife." 

"Listen here, Malfoy," Phaedra said in an 'I'm-talking-to-a-five-year-old' voice, "if they haven't done it a dozen times already, then I'm a flobberworm." 

He gave her an appraising stare. "You don't look too much like a worm, you know." 

"Really? Then what do I look like?" 

"…Xena?" 

"Who?" she frowned. 

"Never mind," he waved. "The point is that the longer we let Potter and Ginny be together, the more cuckold we become." 

"Yeah, that's true," she mused, "but I doubt that they will want to stay together forever, so cheating on us or not, our loved ones will be ours in the end…" 

"What makes you so sure?" asked Draco, jumping aside from the path of a mad magician on a mad moped. 

"Simple," Phaedra shrugged. "What Harry wants more than anything is a child – especially now that our daughter is dead. _I _can give him as many children as he wants. Your wife can't. So, he'll leave your Ginny sooner or later, and you'll get her back." 

"I'm not sure I want a wife who's had sex with Potter," he grunted. 

"Then you might as well give up the search, Blond Prince, because there's no doubt that he's already had sex with her," she replied coldly. 

"I'm not Blond Prince, and stop talking to me like I was a five-year-old!" he snapped. 

"Then behave like an adult and I'll treat you like one. Accept the cruel reality, Malfoy, that your wife and my hubby are together somewhere, probably shagging each other senseless." 

Draco's pallor turned to ruby red and his hands clenched into fists, but he controlled himself and held back the obvious curses that had wanted to burst out of him. 

"Okay," he nodded. "Can we have a glimpse at your er… cell phone?" 

She had to suppress a giggle. "Tracker, Malfoy, Tracker. I just said that Muggles were supposed to think it was a cell phone." 

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he sighed, hating to be always corrected by this woman. She was too bossy for a female, he thought. Then again, he had always loved Xena very much… 

Phaedra pulled her Tracker out of her pocket and switched it on to show Harry – or at least Harry's position of a day earlier. 

"Hm… weird." 

"What's weird?" the young wizard enquired. 

"He seems to have been in Delphi yesterday." 

"Delphi? The place with the oracle?" 

"Uh-huh, that's it. But as far as I know, that oracle hasn't been operating for 1500 years now…" 

Draco shrugged. "One way to find out, eh?" 

* * * * * 

"Have you placed that Bug Charm on the blond bloke?" asked the Chief Auror. 

"Yes, sir, he was so deeply immersed in trying to beat me in chess that he didn't notice it," replied his subordinate. 

"Great," the Chief rubbed his hands together. 

"But boss, are you sure they're going to lead us to Dudley Dursley?" 

"Well, they seem to be closer to finding him than we are, don't you think?" smirked the Chief contentedly. "Wait, just wait, Dursley, you'll find yourself in the Labyrinth before you can say Quidditch!" 

* * * * * 

"I'm knackered," groaned Ginny as she joined Harry on a cliff ledge after several hours of climbing. 

"Because you aren't used to difficult exercises. You should have gone in for sports instead of sitting around all day at Malfoy Manor," commented Harry in a slightly sarcastic voice. "I bet good ol' Draco would have installed a gym for you if you had asked." 

"I doubt it," she grimaced, wiping her sweaty and dirty hands on her dress. "Draco hasn't given me anything but pain and grief… except perhaps an urge to kick him hard in the groin and make sure that the name Malfoy would at last die out." 

Harry shot her a half-unbelieving, half-amused stare. 

"Rather that than raising a brat of Draco's whose mother is say… Pansy Parkinson," she added, still gasping for breath. "I'm not raising my husband's illegitimate children, no way!" 

"Doesn't that also concern me?" Harry asked heavily. 

"What do you mean?" she wiped her beading forehead, annoyed to see that he wasn't sweaty in the slightest. 

"I meant… if everything goes right, we'll get married, Gin. And I have an illegitimate child. I don't think there's much of a chance for me to ever get hold of her, Voldemort's keeping her out of my reach, but should some miracle happen and… and should I get her, then would you…?" 

She bit her lower lip, gazing at the sea. From this vantage point the scenery was perfect, even though the island of Delos was pretty boring with all its rocks and its serious lack of flora. Seagulls were chasing each other merrily in the early afternoon sunshine, occasionally diving into the waves for lunch. 

"I… I don't know, Harry," she shook her head. "This is a rather difficult question, and the answer is even more difficult. I honestly don't know. I don't even know your daughter… what's her name again?" 

That was when it struck Harry that he hadn't thought of the child's name yet at all. Before his latest dream about Voldemort, he hadn't the slightest idea what his daughter was called, but in the dream… it was mentioned in the dream… Wormtail had mentioned it… 

"Amrita," he replied. "Her name's Amrita." 

"A Hindi name, isn't it?" Ginny furrowed her brows, perfectly understand what it meant. It was still new and surprising for her to understand all human languages. Had she heard the child's name just four days earlier, it wouldn't have told her anything, she would have said it was a pretty name, without understanding its meaning. 

"Yeah, it is," Harry nodded. "Weird name, isn't it?" 

"Why would You-Know-Who name her _Amrita_?" she wondered. "What reason did he have to call a child that? Did he name her that just because he liked the name or was there a particular reason?" 

"I don't think Voldemort would have named her Amrita just because he liked the name," Harry replied seriously. "I doubt he likes anything, and he's just not the type to think up pretty names… No, Ginny, I'm sure there's something behind this… But I don't know what. Well," a grin replaced his concerned expression, "one thing is sure: if I ever get to see her, I'm going to call her Amy, NOT Rita." 

"Wonder why," Ginny chuckled, then suddenly remembered what he had asked before she asked the child's name. "Er, Harry… I don't know the answer to your question. Not yet, anyway. I'm sure she's a lovely little girl, since she's yours, but…"   
He reached out and placed his index finger on her lips. "It's okay, Ginny. It was a stupid question to ask, sorry. I don't want to foist a kid upon you, it would be selfish of me." 

"I don't think it's selfish, it's understandable that you love her and want to secure her a happy life with a proper family…" 

"But it's not likely that my daughter will ever have a happy life," he sighed. "Not with Voldemort having her in his clutches." 

To divert his thoughts from these sad things, she put an arm around his neck and pecked his cheek. 

"C'mon, Big Boy, let's find that Row of Gods, shall we?" 

"Of course," he nodded with a small smile and they continued their way through a cleft in the rock. 

* * * * * 

"Please, please, don't kill us, I'll do anything if you let us live!" squeaked Pythia, gazing at the wand pointed at her heart. "I could perhaps… predict you something totally free of charge!" 

"I don't need your bloody predictions," growled Draco, who was holding the wand pointed at the oracle. "I only want to know whether a redheaded woman and a black haired bloke have been here recently." 

Pythia gulped and squinted at her trainee, Helen. 

"Don't tell them, Pythia!" breathed Helen, who also had a wand – Phaedra's – pointed at her. "We mustn't disclose classified information like this! You taught me this sacred rule, Pythia!" 

"What is better: a treacherous oracle or a dead one?" asked Phaedra in a conversational tone. 

"A… all right," sighed the old Diviner. "I… I'll tell you. Just pointed that thing elsewhere, will you?" 

"No," Draco replied. "Out with it, have they been here?" 

"Y… yes. They were here yesterday." 

"See, the Tracker's never been wrong before," Phaedra told Draco proudly. 

"And, what sort of prophecy did they ask for?" Draco continued the interrogation. 

"Don't tell them!" Helen beseeched her boss. 

"Right. You tell us, then," Phaedra pressed the tip of her wand to the trainee's throat. Helen broke out in cold sweat.   
"I won't," she hissed through gritted teeth. 

"Oh, don't play the heroine, Helen… I promise… I'll still give you your Oracle Certificate… if you spill the beans to this lady and gentleman," wheezed Pythia. 

"Will you?" the trainee seemed to hesitate. "Oh, all right, then. The black haired chap and his red haired girlfriend wanted to know how one could be freed from The Fates Charm." 

"What?" Draco gasped. How could Ginny have told Potter about the charm? Draco had threatened her with the prospect of her tongue getting ripped out and her hand shrivelling if she told/wrote someone about The Fates Charm. Certainly it had been a mere bluff of Draco's – he wouldn't want his beautiful wife to get maimed – but it seemed to him that she had believed the threat… so why would she risk becoming mute or crippled? 

Did her freedom mean so much more to her than her health? Draco was amazed by the courage his wife must have had to tell Potter her true story… but then again, why was he surprised? She had been a Gryffindor, after all, thus 'acting the hero' must have been natural for her… 

"You heard it, she wanted to get free," grunted Helen. 

"And what did you tell her, how can she get free?" Malfoy asked, feeling extremely worried. What if Ginny had managed to break the effect of Lucius' charm on her father? Then she'd no longer stay with him, and he wouldn't have another ace in his hand to play… 

He shuddered and prodded Pythia in the chest with his wand. "Speak up, old wench!" 

"I will not be spoken to like that!" snapped the oracle. 

"Oh yeah? Would you rather get a nice Avada Kedavra?" snarled Draco. 

"Noooo," Pythia waved nervously. "I'm sure we can discuss this like civilised people, sir. No need for threats really…"   
"Then talk," growled the blond wizard. "What did you tell them?" 

"I… I told them to go to Delos and find the Row of Gods, because they'll find the Fates themselves there, too." 

"Aha! Delos, then," smirked Phaedra smugly. "We've got them." 

"Why, what's on Delos?" asked Draco. 

"Nothing. A dreary place, rocky and dry. Boring," she replied, "thus an ideal place for the Fates to hide." 

"Do you… do you really believe in the Fates?" Draco raised an eyebrow. 

"Our world is full of surprises, Malfoy, full of inexplicable things, so I don't have a reason _not to_ believe in them." 

Draco nodded with a slightly doubtful expression. What if the oracle was misleading them? "Can we trust them?" he pointed at Pythia and Helen. 

"Of course we can," Phaedra said. "As far as I remember from my studies on ancient Greece, the oracle is bound by a magical contract to always tell the truth. Had she lied to us, she would be dead." 

"Oh, good," grinned Draco. "Thanks for the information, then, ladies." 

* * * * * 

"Beautiful," breathed Ginny as she and Harry walked up the path hidden among the cliffs, leading up to an opening of some sort of a cave. It wouldn't have been anything special, had two elaborately carved statues not stood on either side of its entrance, one of them glowing in a golden, the other one in a silvery-blue hue that gave them a mystical, ethereal quality. 

"Yeah, quite pretty," agreed Harry, sizing up the two statues. "Wonder who they are? I mean, which gods?" 

"That's obvious, isn't it? Apollo and Artemis, the gods who were born on this island from Leto, lover of Zeus." 

"Leto?" Harry snorted. "I happen to know a Leto, but it's highly unlikely that Zeus would ever fall for her…" 

"Do you think Muggles can also find this place?" she murmured, looking at Apollo's handsome face. The whole statue was golden yellow, wearing a wreath of golden laurels and a lute in his hand. His sister Artemis had bluish 'skin', wore a diadem with a silvery moon set into it like a diamond, and held a bow in her hands. 

"I don't think so," Harry shook his head. "It must be like Hogwarts: invisible to non-magical folks." 

"And what… what do you think we'll find here, Harry? I mean, besides the Fates?" 

"One way to find out," he shrugged. "Ready, milady?" 

"I s'pose," she nodded, somewhat hesitantly. 

He gave her an encouraging smile, grasped her hand and together they entered the cave. 

* * * * * 

Iolaus, the Receptionist of the Hotel Atlantis was choking. The reason for his choking was none other than Macnair's fist tightly wound around his throat. Another five cloaked and hooded figures stood around him, all of them pointing their wands at him menacingly. 

Where was the Hero Who Saved Them All when he needed him again? 

Oh, yeah, he had left, Iolaus thought, and these unsympathetic fellows here were questioning him about the Hero.   
"Give us the name and you'll live," growled the rude bloke who was trying to throttle him. 

Iolaus swallowed hard – as much as he could do so with not much space left in his compressed gullet to swallow. "A… all right, then… just release my throat… will you?" When Macnair grunted at him, he hastily added: "Just because… I can't reach the registry book… if you don't release me… Not to mention that you might accidentally kill me." 

"Accidentally? It wouldn't be an accident," snarled the bulky Death Eater. 

"Release him, Walden," said a cold female voice from under one of the hoods. 

The rude fellow let go of the throat of Iolaus, who now had enough space to bend down (gasping for breath) and pull the registry book out of a drawer. 

"Let's see…" he started leafing through the book, finally reaching the recordings of one day earlier. "Yeah, here it is." 

"And? What's that bastard called?" demanded one of the hooded figures. 

"Papafotiu," replied the Receptionist. "He signed in with the name Spiridon Papafotiu." 

* * * * * 

As Harry and Ginny stepped into the cave, it no more looked like a cave at all, it rather looked like some long but perfectly constructed tunnel whose walls were a friendly pale-yellow. The wall on the left was adorned with a pretty golden pattern. No torch was needed inside, they didn't even need to say _Lumos_, for the tunnel was adequately illuminated by ever-criss-crossing little flashes of lightning on the low ceiling. 

"Bet this is some sort of Tunnel of Zeus, eh?" Harry murmured as he and the young witch made their way through the tunnel. Ginny was examining the golden pictures on the wall: there were six of them, each showing different figures. 

On the first one she saw a man dressed in armour, accompanied by a rather horrible-looking creature that she had once seen in the book _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_, but didn't remember its name. Behind the armoured figure stood a huge person with one eye only. It looked a lot like Grawp, with the exception that Grawp had two eyes. 

On the second picture Ginny saw a tall, slender woman in a helmet. Next to it, on the next wall-painting there was a naked (or apparently naked) man whose lower body was hidden by waves, holding a trident. On the fourth picture there weren't any figures, just some sort of a pond with a tiny waterfall running into it. The fifth fresco depicted a sullen figure in a boat, rowing on a river, a huge three-headed dog in the background. 

"Looks like Fluffy," Harry remarked. "And that giant reminds me of Grawpy. Hagrid should've come, he'd like these pictures." 

"But why do these pictures give me the impression that they aren't just here for decoration?" mused Ginny. 

"Dunno," shrugged the young wizard, examining the last picture that showed three women weaving, measuring and cutting threads. "Look, these must be the Fates." 

"If those are the Fates, then the other frescos also must depict real persons, don't you think?" 

"As far as the Greek Gods are real," said Harry with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "But if they are, then I bet the first bloke is Ares, the helmeted chick must be Pallas Athena, the naked chap's Poseidon, the fourth pic is… I don't know what it is, but the fifth is Charon." 

"Charon?" Ginny paled. "You mean the servant of Hades who takes the dead over the River Styx?" 

"Uh-huh." 

"Spooky," she whispered. "But what do these murals mean?" 

"Well, the pictures follow each other in a row. Perhaps that's why this place's called the Row of Gods," Harry suggested. 

"Aha," she nodded, though she didn't really understand it, not yet, anyway. 

Soon the tunnel ended in a massive silvery door. As Harry reached out to open the door, a hazy, slightly see-through image of a woman appeared in front of them. She wore sweeping, lilac robes and a wreath made of peacock feathers. She looked extremely haughty, as though she was some sort of a queen… 

Ginny had already opened her mouth to greet her when the woman spoke up:   


_Enter strangers, but beware,_   
_Tis' not just a truth or dare,_   
_Here you have to prove your mettle,_   
_That you're ready for a battle,_   
_You'll have to show you're clever,_   
_So enter now or never,_   
_If you think you have the guts,_   
_Welcome to the Row of Gods_   


"Thanks," said Harry, but the woman didn't reply – her figure got hazier by the second, then totally vanished. 

"Well, this must've been Hera," Ginny stated. 

"Whew, then I understand why Zeus cheated on her with every second female," he commented, only to get a disapproving stare from her. "I mean, come on, who'd like a woman with peacock feathers sticking out of her head?" 

She shook her head, suppressing a chuckle. "What do you have against peacock feathers? I really like them, once saw Gilderoy Lockhart sign something with his… you have to give it to him, the peacock feather suited him…" 

"Do you want to make me jealous?" he playfully arched an eyebrow at her. 

"Noooo, how can you even imagine such things of me?" she cocked her head in a coquettish way. 

"Ginny, don't do this to me…" he breathed. 

"Why?" she batted her eyelashes exactly like she had seen from Megara the conductor. 

"Because then we'll never get into the next room." 

"Why not?" she licked her lips, making Harry pant heavily. 

"Because… because I'll push you to the wall and make you mine right here." 

Working hard to hide her amusement, she pointed her wand at him, and squirted him with a jet of ice-cold water. 

"Feeling better?" she asked innocently. 

"Much," he grunted, shaking his head to get rid of the droplets stuck among his black locks. "And I'd return the favour, if we didn't have more pressing things on our hands." 

"Just ten seconds ago you seemed to be willing to forget about those pressing things on our hands…" she pointed out. 

"You love teasing me, don't you?" he rolled his eyes. 

"Just as much as _you _love teasing me," she countered. 

"How utterly disgusting," said a voice from behind them. 

They turned around to see Hera, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, her eyebrows knitted and her lips tucked into a pout. 

"What?" 

"For Zeus' sake, stop billing and cooing and get down to business," Hera growled. "I'm sick of seeing dallying couples, yuck."   
Harry was about to give her a snappy comeback, but Ginny was quicker: "What if we want to bill and coo, eh? It's none of your business, sister. Just because you aren't getting any, why shouldn't _we_ get some?" 

Harry stared at her, his mouth slightly open with surprise. This was his Ginny! This was the same Ginny whom he had fallen for in his sixth year, the same Ginny who wouldn't leave him alone until he poured out his heart to her – the determined, self-confident girl who had captured his attention like no other girl before… Suddenly he felt he got his 'old' Ginny back, making him want to pick her up and swirl her in the air until she squealed 'put me down this instant!', but Hera's icy cold glance made him think better of it. Later. He'd have time later to make love to Ginny against a wall or to tease her until she gave him a Bat-Bogey-Hex… first she needed to be free from that evil curse. 

"She didn't mean what she said, she's just a bit hyper due to those five cups of coffee she drank on the Hippobus, forgive her, O Queen of Gods, please," he bowed slightly, needing all his self-control not to start laughing at his own ridiculous words. 

"All right then," Hera straightened her back proudly. "I forgive this insolent child, only because you asked politely. But try and refrain from frolicking around here, will you? You can do it if you get deeper into the Row of Gods, but I seriously doubt that you will get very deep into it…" she gave Harry a supercilious smile. 

"Why wouldn't we?" Ginny asked. 

"Because the dead can't get into anywhere… save the netherworld," Hera added sweetly and disappeared from sight again. 

"Charming lady, isn't she?" Harry grimaced. 

"Absolutely," Ginny wrinkled her freckled nose. 

"I don't know about you, but I'm not too frightened by her threats." 

"Neither am I. I was in Gryffindor too, remember?" 

"How could I ever forget that?" he smiled dreamily. "You in your tight-fitting red-gold Quidditch robes… you were darn sexy, did you know?" 

"Michael told me so," she shrugged. 

"Ah, Michael… Married Cho, didn't he?" 

"So I heard. They even have a son called Cedric." 

"Good that I didn't get together with her, then. Imagine her naming _our _son Cedric…" he said, reaching for the handle on the silvery door to open it. 

"Really, if you ever had a son… what would you name him?" Ginny asked quietly. 

His hand had already grasped the handle, but very slowly he turned around. His expression radiated some gentleness, some sort of longing, and a bit of sadness. "I think… I'd name him Sirius." 

"Oh," she nodded knowingly. "Well then, let's go inside." 

He pushed down the handle and entered, closely followed by Ginny. The first thing that struck them was that the room they got into was pitch-black, and that the door closed behind them with a loud snap. Harry thought of trying to open it again, just to make sure they'd able to leave if needed, but he immediately changed his mind as the room suddenly got illuminated by some mysterious, invisible magic, and they caught a glimpse of an enormous creature with the head of a lion, body of a ram and tail of dragon lunging at them.   
  
  


**A/N2**: cliffie this time :) 

_Wood's secret lover:_ no, Deadalus' son didn't fall from the roof, but he indeed fell - into the sea. Deadalus and Icarus tried to escape from King Minos' palace and Deadalus made wngs of feathers for himself and his son, and stuck the feathers together with wax. He told his son not to fly too close to the sun, because the wax would melt then. However, stupid Icarus didn't listen to his dad and flew too close to the sun, the wax melted, his wings fell apart and he fell into the sea and died. There's an island close to the place where he died, named Icaria. Thanks for the correction, I took 'either' out of the sentence. 

_Chelsea of the Moor_: D/P won't forget about their spouses yet, sorry. 

_Jaquelyne_: Dax Torres? I had no idea he was reading this fic... he read my trilogy, but I didn't know he was reading this one, too. 

_K. C. Hunter:_ Megara was surely Hercules' wife. Also a Greek town is named Megara, look at your map, you'll see. 

_hypnotic-babe_: no problem, I knew that erupted was written with one r, I've check my dictionary. However, thanks for trying to help :) 

_AmandaPanda:_ nice to see you again, I thought you stopped reading! Thanks for your prayers. 

_Paige:_ yes, Ginny's a bit docile because of her marriage, but back in chapter 5 (the flashback to her fifth year) she was quite a strong personality. And, as you might have noticed, she's getting a bit stronger (she talked back to a goddess, after all). You'll see a 'strong' Ginny in the next chapter, I promise :) Yes, grandpa surely died happily. I think God listened to his pleas to let him die in a fairly painless way and very quickly. 

_OfTheWest_: I hope your grandpa gets better, my prayers are with you and your family. Yeah, Harry taking off his clothes is definitely a nice mental image ;) Glad you like Amrita's name. 

_Kit Cloudkicker_: I just relied on the book on name origins. 

_Altec:_ you're Italian? That's cool, I never knew! :D 

_dementorchic: _well, perhaps now you don't say that the fic is still 'realistic', but I wanted to put Greek gods into it, so you'll just have to endure them ;) 

_carameLisSa_: PG-15ish? LOL, I've never heard of PG-15 ;) As you might have realised, Harry's using pseudonyms has caused a little misunderstanding in this chapter, and it'll become a huge misunderstanding later. 

_Arwen_: noble and serene? Thanks, it's nice to know! Adela was indeed noble and serene, so her name fits, then :) 

_rebkos_: NOW ;) 

_Ginny1946_: thanks :) 

_midori_: now you surely understand HOW Spiro gets into trouble, and how it's connected to Harry's using pseudonyms. Yes, the Greek Aurors are after Harry because of the murder. No idea why the manuscript was the in chandelier - it just seemed an interesting place to hide it. Perhaps because I saw Phantom of the Opera shortly before writing chapter 12, and I just wanted to put a smashed chandelier into it ;) And thanks for making an exception and taking the time to review :) 

_C-chan1_: is there a Xena game with lava? I'm not into computer games, so I don't know. I LOVED that song, very, very funny, I was actually hearing it inside of my head, the music from Sound of music (I love that movie, too!) I've read the fun-tastic innuendo list, too! Bloody brilliant :) Sorry for mentally scarring you! It wasn't my fault - it wasn't me who wrote that stupid fic, after all ;) I luv Marvin too, reminds me a bit of C-3PO. Was Jason Isaacs playing in Peter Pan? How cool! Is Tinkerbell that small fairy? (I haven't read Peter Pan, so I don't really know). 

_Sparkle Tangerine_: yup, Hagrid is alive and you'll see him in chapters 17 and 20. Snape is alive too, but you'll only see him for a second in chapter 20. Albus died when Harry last battled with Voldemort :( 

_Houou Kazoku Kaga_: yup, I know it's evil :) 

_MilesFromNormal:_ if you wanted to know when Ginny gets pregnant - well, only two more chapters and it'll happen! :) 

_Elfy19:_ you'll see whether I kill him off or not ;) 

_Shaucker_: medusa is a seaweed? I only knew medusas that were animals... Ginny will be stronger soon, she won't always depend on Harry. 

_Hermione We@s!ey:_ no, there won't be a sequel to this fic. 

_Donna2026_: I'm glad I can give you a smile once a week, your review gave me a smile, too :) 

_Swanny:_ H/G action coming soon. Nice to have you back! And glad you like Enemy :D 

_jennaration_: thanks for the corrections. In case you need some fic-recommendations (given that you barely read any anymore), just tell me, I have read some great ones recently. 

_ruffled owl_: thanks for the help! :) 

_Wizzabee_: I never said that Draco and Phaedra weren't going to get together ;) 

_Hedwig55_: 31 chapters put together. 

_Jamming with Edward_: *waves* hi Lourdes! Been missing you! :D May I ask where this funny user name of yours comes from? I don't think Harry will die in book seven. JKR has been threatening the poor fans that he will, but I think that's just a mere threat. Come on, HP is after all a children's book, and in childrens' books the main characters (the positive heroes) don't die. Let's be optimistic! No, I don't like football, I find it very boring. But my dad loves it. The only sport that I love watching on TV is figure skating, it's so pretty! 

_Noemi:_ you asked why Harry had told different pseudonyms to Spiro and Nikias, if he knew that those two knew each other. Well, when Harry told these people pseudonyms, he very likely hadn't known that these two knew it each other. You'll see how Ginny can get pregnant despite her illness. The key is hidden in chapter 15, but Ginny will only realise how it could have happened in chapter 21. The fic is Draco/Phaedra, Pansy was just there to make the reader see how much Draco was sleeping around. 

_Princess Ginny:_ I'm happy that at least your grandpa is feeling better :) Yes, I know the feeling that you don't want to go to school and yet you want to :) 

_Sarinileni:_ I'm sorry about your cousin, was she young? It's worse seeing young people die than old ones :( 

_TigHan_: I wouldn't say that Draco and Phaedra will be _in love_, but there will be some hinting that they might fall in love. There won't be great D/P romancing, though. The Greek Magical Law Enforcement knows Harry as Dudley, they have no idea that he's indeed Harry Potter. 

Also thanks to: _TrixieFirecracker, Liz Dockson, Mistri Cho's Observer Tonks' Admirer, Alexander Phoenix, kneh13, Tap Dancing Widow, Myr Halcyon, Romina, Rayssa Radcliffe, Embyr Black, iNiGmA, Mery, moony*padfoot, goldenstar555, Imalil2sarcastic_   
  



	14. Hermione

**A/N: **thanks to everyone for your help with grammar, I really appreciate it!   
Don't expect an update till next Wednesday, because I'm going to have my biggest and most important exam on Tuesday (wish me good luck! In other words: say '_may the Force be with you_!';)   
Check out the art for this chapter, it's the best of all chapter illustrations (because I coloured it with computer while I coloured the others with pencils).   


**Chapter 14**

**Hermione**

_"Every exit is an entry somewhere."_   
(Tom Stoppard)   
  


Quick as lightning, Harry yanked Ginny out of the way of the monster, so that it crashed into the wall behind the spot where she had stood a nanosecond earlier. The monster didn't stand up right after it ran into the wall, it seemed to be a bit dizzy to round on them immediately, so they had a few seconds to run to the door they had just come through, trying to pry it open – only it was locked. 

"_Alohomora_!" Ginny shouted desperately, but it didn't budge. 

"Leave it, we've got to fight our way through this room if we want to reach the Fates!" Harry yelled. 

"Fight this?" she yelled back. "Harry's this is a Chimera!" 

"As if I didn't know!" he grunted as the animal managed to pull itself together, and somewhat shakily turned in their direction, its huge red eyes gleaming menacingly. 

"Could you freeze it in time?" Ginny suggested, her wand hand trembling. 

"Not bloody likely," he replied, flattened against the magically locked door. 

"W… why not?" she stammered. 

"Because of its tail. See, it's a dragon's tail, and dragons are the only creatures that cannot be frozen in time…" 

"But this is just part-dragon," she reasoned. 

"It's still impossible, tried it during my Circle-training, no use…" 

The Chimera, however, didn't seem to like their little chitchat, so it rather decided to end it by advancing on them with an ear-splitting roar, opening its horrible mouth to reveal a row of razor-sharp teeth. 

"Eurgh, don't you ever clean your teeth? You've got a terrible breath, fellow," grimaced Harry. 

"I fear he understands us…" Ginny whispered. "So don't rile him, will you?" 

"He doesn't need riling to want to eat us," Harry replied under his breath. "He looks damn hungry." 

"Then… conjure some food for him?" she suggested. 

"Won't help," Harry replied as the beast pounced. He Disapparated from the spot and appeared several meters to the left. "Chimeras prefer human flesh." 

"Now you tell me," she gulped, her wand still shaking in her hand. 

The monster turned around – it took him about four second to properly turn around, since Chimeras are like rhinos in this respect: they have difficulties with changing direction – and lunged at Harry again. Harry again Disapparated to appear on the beast's right this time, aggravating it more and more by the second. The poor Chimera was looking from left to right, right to left, as though watching a table-tennis game, because Harry kept Apparating so quickly all around the room to confuse it and to divert its attention from Ginny. The monster kept jumping back and forth, according to where he had last seen Harry, while Harry was actually having fun. It was really fun driving a Chimera mad… until you accidentally Apparated right under its feet.   
That's exactly what happened to Harry: he randomly Apparated at the middle of the room, not counting with the possibility that the monster might instinctively jump to the very same spot at the very same second. The odds against such things happening were about 725:1, but Harry was unfortunate enough to be the exception. 

"Harry!" shrieked Ginny as she saw the enormous creature land on Harry. Seemingly its success appalled the Chimera as much as it shocked his 'future snack'. For a second it looked down at the human sprawled under him, confused, its lapse of attention giving Ginny time to cast her famous Bat-Bogey Hex on it. 

With a tremendous roar the monster jumped off Harry, wriggling its goat-legs towards its lion-head to chase those terrible, flapping batwings off it, to no avail. 

"You needn't have, I could've Apparated out from under it," Harry said as he stood up and stumbled several steps sideways until Ginny caught him. 

"Oh, really?" she arched an eyebrow at him. "Then why didn't you Apparate out from under it?" 

"I just fancied a bit of a rest… you know, if you've fallen, why stand up at once, why not stay there lying, resting a bit?" 

"Admit it that you were too crushed under the beast to Disapparate and that I saved you," she folded her arms with a demanding expression. 

"All right, you win," he grinned and pulled her out of the way of the howling Chimera that was still trying to get the batwings off its head. "Nice charm, by the way. Is this your favourite? You used it in Atlantis, too." 

"It's just too good not to use," she smiled proudly. "But the batwings suited Draco better than the Chimera." 

"I'm still sorry I didn't have a chance to see him like that," he sighed happily, but in the next instant all happiness disappeared from his face. 

"What?" she frowned, seeing his frightened expression. He pointed at something behind her back, and already dreading what she'd see, she turned around to face the most bizarre creature she'd ever seen. 

The creature was human-looking, though at least twenty feet high, and had a huge eye in the middle of its forehead. 

"I fear this is a nightmare come true," she muttered, remembering the frescos they had seen in the tunnel that Harry had so appropriately named Tunnel of Zeus. 

"I start to agree. First a Chimera, now a Cyclops… what's next?" 

However, she didn't have a chance to answer, for the Cyclops came running towards them, its huge arms stretched out, its enormous yellowish teeth bared, its only eye glinting hungrily. 

"You're asking what's next?" she breathed, pointing her wand at the one-eyed giant. "Either a Harry and Ginny Burger, or… _Conjunctivitis!_" she shouted at the Cyclops that clapped his hands over his only eye, howling with pain. 

"That was below the belt, to give the poor bloke an eye-disease, when he's only got one…" said Harry with a smirk. "Well done." 

"Thanks…" Ginny started when the Chimera, still struggling with the batwings blurring its view, ran headlong into the Cyclops who obviously didn't see it coming. The Cyclops stumbled from the beast's 'attack' and Harry and Ginny jumped aside to get out of the way of the falling giant. The giant hit the floor with a thud, jerking his enormous hands off his face. 

"Watch out!" yelled Ginny as the Cyclops' left arm flailed around him, almost tripping Harry. 

In the meantime, the roaring, and still barely-able-to-see Chimera hurtled over the sprawled out giant's legs, making it let out a yowl of pain as it trod on the limbs, its dragon-tail whipping madly in all directions. Harry, who was still struggling to sustain his balance after the Cyclops had almost tripped him, couldn't jump aside quickly enough and the dragon-tail smashed him hard in the back. 

"Damn it," he doubled over and Disapparated to reappear several meters away from the rampaging Chimera. "We should at last get out of here, Gin…" he wheezed, still not able to straighten his back properly. 

"I agree," she put an arm around his shoulder, steering him away from the Cyclops and the Chimera, towards the other end of the room where a door in the shape of an owl could be seen. "Come, before those beasts start to look for us again," she tried pulling her injured companion across the room as fast as possible. 

"You don't need to prop me up, okay?" he hissed through gritted teeth. 

"Oh, stop acting the hero," she snapped, trying to take as much of his weight as possible to lighten the walk for him. 

They were merely five meters from the door when a loud rumbling indicated that the Cyclops had come round and was trying to rise to his feet, also the Chimera came roaring towards them… 

With the last of his strength, Harry raised his wand. "Impedimenta on the count of three, okay?" 

"Right," Ginny nodded. 

"One… two… three… _Impedimenta_!" 

Both the giant and the monster got blasted backwards, as though they had been blown away by an unusually strong gust of wind, and the young witch and wizard ran for the owl-shaped door and yanked it open. 

"Whew, lucky it wasn't locked, too," Ginny remarked as she slammed it shut behind them. 

"Yeah, lucky," he agreed and had to sit down on the sandy ground. 

"Are you all right?" she crouched down next to him. 

"Never better," he grimaced. "Little Horntail-Wannabe out there got me right in the back… a wonder none of my vertebrae broke." 

"What sort of room do you reckon this is?" she looked around, making sure that no new beasts would attack them. However, in this room she couldn't see anything moving, there were several bookshelves around, carved marble owls perching atop them, but besides the shelves there was nothing else, save some sort of a board built into the opposite wall. 

"Must be that of Athena," he replied. "The one we just escaped from must've been that of Ares. Remember the pictures in the tunnel? They followed each other like that: Ares – the bloke in armour, he obviously set a task of fighting his favourite little pets… I bet those pets were guarding this room, or whatever that is in this room. After him Athena came on the fresco, it's obvious, the woman in helmet must have been her, and the door to this room depicted an owl and the shelves are full of stone owls…" 

"Oh, the owl is the symbol of Pallas Athena," Ginny nodded. 

"So, if we get through this room, then we can expect some task from Poseidon," he said, still doubled over. 

"Does it hurt very much?" she worried. 

"I'll live, don't worry. I've been through worse in the Circle training and on certain missions," he waved nonchalantly, then his face contorted with pain – even the wave must have hurt him a lot. "I rather feel ashamed, I should've remembered how to do away with a bloody Chimera… and I should have been more cautious, I saw that damn tail coming towards me from behind, yet I wasn't quick enough to jump aside… I should have at least Disapparated or something…" 

Ginny put her arms around his neck and snuggled her face into his damp-with-sweat hair. "Harry, you're good in a fight, but you're not a superhero, accept it. Not even you are invincible or invulnerable…" 

He gave her a sour look. "I've screwed it up, Gin. There's no excuse for someone with a Circle training to screw up! If it weren't for you, I'd be dead!" 

"Oh, and you feel miserable about me saving your life, eh?" she pulled away from him, looking sulky. 

"No!" he replied hastily, then made an embarrassed grimace. "Well, yes, but…" 

"No buts!" she jumped to her feet. "You men are all the same: can't except that we females can also be just as clever or skilful or brave as you are! You all give us this male-chauvinist shit that you should be the ones to protect us, but it's not how things work, Harry!" 

By the time she stopped her tirade, she was panting and flushed. "What?" she glared at Harry who was eyeing her in a weird fashion. 

"I love you when're you're shouting, you know…" he replied quietly, his green eyes glinting mischievously. 

"_Only_ when I'm shouting?" she raised her eyebrows challengingly. 

"C'mere," he beckoned to her, though even this little movement must have caused him suffering. But even if it did, he didn't show it. 

Somewhat reluctantly, she sat back down next to him. He sneaked his left arm around her waist, gently pulling her to him. "I love you, always. No matter what happens, Ginny." 

"I love you too… just accept it that you're only human, like all of us." 

"It won't be easy… but I'll try." He kissed her cheek lightly. "Well, time to find out what this room has in store for us, eh?" 

She nodded and helped him off the ground. Though with some difficulty, he managed to straighten his back and looked around in the room. 

"Weird shelves," Harry said, reaching out for a book on a shelf, but his hand went simply through it. "What are these? Ghost-books? Or holograms? I doubt whether the ancient Greeks knew about holograms." 

"I think these bookshelves are just here for… decoration," said Ginny. "As we surmised, this must be Athena's room, and she was the Goddess of Wisdom, that's why she decorated her room with books and owls. But, with the exception of these shelves, there's nothing else here, the only thing seems to be that board over there," she pointed at a huge rectangular board set into the wall at the farthest end of the room. 

They walked up to the board and Harry touched it to make sure that it wasn't just a fake one like the bookshelves. However, this one felt solid and since there was no other door in the room but the one they had come through from Ares' room, he suspected that the board might be the key to their continuing their journey. 

He stepped slightly back to read the script on the board – but he couldn't. 

"What the heck?" he frowned. Ever since the all-language charm had been cast on him, he had been able to interpret all sorts of scripts written in all human languages… but not this one, for this one seemed to be nothing else but a random order of the letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. At the bottom there were four separate, circle-shaped stones, each bearing one of the first four letters of the Greek alphabet. 

Ginny started chewing her lower lip, her eyes fixed upon the mysterious board and when Harry opened his mouth to ask what was going through her mind, she waved him to shut up and not disturb her in the concentration. 

Harry was getting annoyed by her silence, he didn't like being left out of things… He was just about to remind Ginny that he was still there when she suddenly turned away from the board and pointed her wand at the floor, using it like a pencil, drawing something into the dust. 

Harry peered at two pictures she had drawn, to see the Greek alphabet organised into a square, and next to it, she had drawn the English version with Roman letters. "What are you doing?" 

"I'm drawing Polybios Squares," she replied. 

"Whats?" 

She turned to him, her face radiating excitement and something that suggested to Harry that she had solved the riddle. "I was taught Ancient Runes by the private teacher Draco hired for me… He taught me all sorts of runes, and even some cryptography. The Greek Polybios had made up this square that can be used for coding texts. See," she pointed at the English version that she had only drawn to help Harry understand it, "if you want to write HI GINNY, you have to write it as BCBDBBBDCCCCED. Each letter can be given by the combination of A, B, C, D or E. Look, A is AA, B is AB, C is AC, and so on… and of course, in Greek, you have to combine Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. With the help of this square, we will hopefully be able to read that text on the board." 

Harry gave Ginny an admiring look that she accepted with a smug grin. 

"So, let's see it, then," she crouched down next to the squares she'd drawn into the sand and started deciphering the text on the board with its help. 

"Well?" asked Harry after a while. 

"It's a riddle. Or rather a quiz-question with four possible answers," Ginny replied. 

"And? What does it ask?" 

"It's the following: 'W_hich one of the following didn't serve as a sea-obstacle in Odysseus' journey back to Ithaka? A: Scylla B: Charibdys C: Sirens D: Circe' Push the right answer_." She sighed. "Pity that I never read the Odyssey." 

"I have, but hated it. It was a set book in the final year at my primary school, we had a mad Literature teacher called Mrs Perry who insisted that we read it," Harry grimaced at the memory. "It was horrible for a ten-year old, reading a several hundred pages long Greek epic, most of which I didn't even understand. All that I remember is that there was a nymph called Calypso who held Odysseus as her sex-slave while his wife weaved some cloth that she undid every night to fool her stupid suitors… then there was this chick who turned Odysseus' friends into pigs… Hey, that was Circe!" Harry's face lit up. "The chick wanted to turn Odysseus into a pig, too, but he was shrewd and bedded her instead but didn't let her magic him. Circe lived on an island, and when Odysseus met her, he was also on the island," Harry carried on enthusiastically. "Scylla was some six-headed monster that ate several of Odysseus' men when they sailed past her, Charybdis was a whirlpool that tried to suck his ship in… and the sirens, well you know the story," he winked at her. 

"Did Odysseus also sing '_What shall we do with a drunken sailor' _with the Sirens?" she raised an eyebrow. 

"No, he told his men to tie him to the mast so that he wouldn't be able to leave the ship when he heard the Sirens' tempting song. The point is that he met the Sirens while on his ship, while sailing on the sea, so the only one of the four that wasn't a sea-obstacle was Circe." 

"So then, should I push D? I mean, Delta? Are you sure that's the right one?" she asked. 

"Well," he seemed hesitant for a second. "I wouldn't say I'm a hundred percent sure about this, I mean, I was only ten and really didn't understand much of the whole stupid epic and hated all dactyls and spondees and I got a rather bad mark for the test about the Odyssey, so… no, I'm not sure." 

"Arggh," she growled. "What shall we do, then?" 

"Push one of them, then see what happens," he shrugged. "I still suggest the D. Fortune favours the brave, Gin." 

"Ja woll, Herr Gryffindor!" she said sarcastically and pushed the circular button with the sign Delta. 

For several seconds nothing happened, making Ginny think that perhaps Harry's Literature teacher had been right to give him a bad mark, then suddenly they heard the sound of cogwheels whirring inside of the wall and the huge board with the cryptic text slid aside to reveal a hole in the wall. 

"Yessss!" Harry punched the air. "Ouch!" he doubled over in the next instant. 

"All right?" she asked with a worried expression. 

"Yeah, yeah, just a too sudden movement," he replied through gritted teeth. Ginny could see that he wasn't all right at all. He propped his hands on his knees a bit, then straightened his back without a wince, though she could have sworn he'd like to scream with pain. 

"Thank you, Mrs Perry," Harry whispered and stepped through the hole, followed by Ginny. 

* * * * * 

"Apparate to Delos, then?" asked Draco with a wide grin after he and Phaedra left the oracle's underground lair. 

"We can't," she replied. 

"Why?" he furrowed his brow. He wanted to go there this instant, curse Potter and yell at him 'get your dirty hands off my wife and don't ever come near her!' "Why can't we?" 

"Because Apparating has been restricted to Delos." 

"Restricted? Is that a problem?" Draco waved indignantly. "The Greek Wizarding Authorities or what wouldn't have to know that we Apparated there." 

"All right, then, let's rephrase it, Malfoy," Phaedra said in a voice that again sounded like explaining something to a five-year-old: "Apparating to Delos was not only restricted but made impossible." 

"But why???" 

"Because Delos is a place mostly used for meditation and the meditating wizards didn't want to be disturbed by randomly Apparating wizards… You can Apparate on the island once you're there, but you can't Apparate to the island. The point is that we've got to go by the Hippobus. If we reach the one that goes from Pireus at five o'clock, we'll get to Delos at eleven. If we don't reach it, then we'll have to take the one that stops in Atlantis for the night, but I take you don't want to waste a whole night in an underwater city?" 

"Actually it'd be fun, never seen anything like that, but… no, of course not," Draco replied. "I want my wife back, as soon as possible." 

"Then come, Blond Prince, let's Apparate to Pireus." 

"Do – not – call – me – Blond – Prince!" 

* * * * * 

"Wow," Harry breathed as he stepped through the hole from the room of Athena onto a beautiful, sandy beach that didn't look a thing like the beach of Delos, it wasn't as dreary as that: this one had several small sand dunes, a pretty rock in the water with an elegant arch in it, and – to his greatest surprise – a ship was moored in a nearby lagoon. 

"An ancient Greek ship," Ginny stated, looking at the longish eye painted onto the side of the ship. "What do you think, do we have to sail on it?" 

"I don't know…" he replied. "But it seems that there's not much else we could do… I see no monsters attacking us, no script we have to decipher… the ship has to be here for a reason." 

"Then? How do we get there?" she mused. The ship was moored at least fifty metres from the beach. 

"We could swim, of course, but with my aching back I wouldn't care to try," he admitted. "I think we could walk there." 

"Walk???" she blinked, giving him an expression that suggested she thought he'd gone mad. 

"Another useful little charm based on the Bible," Harry smiled, pointing his wand at her feet, then at his own ones, muttering some spell. "There, we've been made feather-light, so now we can walk on the water." 

Ginny squinted at the sapphire waves with a huge deal of mistrust. Seeing her doubtful face, he stepped onto the water and held out his hand for her: "Come on, trust me, you won't sink." 

She took his hand and placed one of her feet onto the surface, trying it with her toes. It felt weirdly solid. With a huge intake of breath she stepped forward, and the water indeed sustained her weight. "This is wonderful!" she squealed with delight. "I'm walking on water!" 

"Race me to the ship?" asked Harry challengingly. 

"Right! One, two, three!" she yelled and sprinted off towards the ship swaying gently ahead. He ran beside her, but his back began to ache so badly again that it hindered him in running. 

"I win!" Ginny said cheerfully. 

"Just because I'm hurt," he said. 

"I would have won even if you weren't hurt," she replied, leaning to the side of the ship. "I'm a damn good runner. Beat Fred and George at it, even Ron. Only Charlie can run quicker than me in the family, that's because he had plenty of exercise running from the dragons when they went on the rampage." 

"Aha," he said and started climbing the rope ladder hanging over the ship's side. "I've always dreamed of this." 

"Of what?" she asked, going aboard, too. 

"This," he grinned, then pointed his wand at himself. In the next instant he was wearing a loose white shirt with slightly frilly cuffs, a pair of tight-fitting navy blue leather trousers, a huge sword on his side and a shawl tied around the top of his head. "Captain Jack Sparrow at your service." 

"You forgot the golden earring," remarked Ginny, and added the missing element of the pirate's costume. "That's better." 

"Thanks, sailor," said the Captain, conjuring a fitting outfit for Ginny: navy blue-white striped blouse, a white little skirt and a jaunty white hat. "And now… let's put out to sea, shall we?" 

"A moment, Captain, we haven't named the ship yet," Ginny pointed out. "Sailing out on a nameless ship is highly unfortunate." 

"Have you been talking a lot to Trelawney?" he arched an eyebrow at her from behind his oval glasses that looked quite terrible on Harry the Pirate. 

"No, but I still want to christen her," insisted the young witch. "Conjure me a bottle of champagne, will you?" 

"Can't you?" he asked. "You've just conjured an earring for me." Harry pointed out. 

"That's easy to do, I learnt it in my sixth year, but conjuring food of any kind is seventh year material, and I never got a chance to learn it," she shrugged. 

"All right," he nodded, and flicked his wand to make a bottle of champagne appear out of nowhere. She took it from him and walked to the rail. She turned around. "What should we name her?" 

"Queen Virginia?" he suggested. 

"Eurgh, I hate that name," she grimaced. The name Virginia always made her think of the morning after her terrible wedding night, when Draco teased her about not being a _Virgin_ia anymore. 

"Then simply Ginny," Harry said. "And if I had several similar ships, I'd call them Ginny1, Ginny2, Ginny3…" 

"Like Jenny1, Jenny2, Jenny3?" she smiled. "I loved Forrest Gump, too." 

"You've seen it?" 

"Mmm…" she gazed into the crystal-clear water. "With Michael, when we were still dating. He took me to the cinema." 

"Did you love him?" he asked the question he had wanted to ask ever since his sixth year at Hogwarts. 

"Nah. I _liked_ him. There's a big difference," she replied, still not looking at him. "I was just fourteen when he first asked me out, and I wanted to forget my infatuation with you… and I had never dated anyone before, so, I thought: why not? But in fact he was just a tool… someone I used to forget you." 

"He must have been a great means of forgetting me, because in my fifth year you didn't seem to like me a bit. At least… not like _that_." 

"Did it bother you?" she cast a sideways glance at him. 

"No. I was too preoccupied with having no news of Voldemort, that old toad Umbridge, Cho, and everything to want your attention… it just surprised me that you no longer blushed when I was nearby." 

"But you liked it when I blushed again in your presence," she smiled at the bittersweet memory of their first 'therapy meeting'. It seemed to her like coming from an earlier life, so distant, so hazy… for a moment she wished she were fifteen again, that she could go back in time and change things… then perhaps she wouldn't have had to marry Draco, she could have stayed with Harry… 

"Yes, I did," he grinned. "Come to think of it: what happened to Umbridge?" 

"Hah, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," she sniggered. 

"Why?" 

"She married Filch." 

"What???" 

"You heard me well, she married old Argus. But she died not long after their wedding, so I heard. Filch was devastated." 

"Actually I'm sorry that Umbridge died. Those two deserved each other," Harry remarked. 

"Yes, they did. Well, let's name this little beauty, shall we? And I'd rather call her Hermione, it's a Greek name at least, while Ginny definitely isn't." 

He shrugged. "Let it be Hermione, then." 

Ginny leaned a bit over the rail and smashed the champagne bottle to the ship's side. "Hereby I christen you _Hermione_." 

* * * * * 

Draco was gazing out the window of the Hippobus, bored. The underwater scenery was really nice, but he wasn't the type to get enthralled by the beauty of such things. 

"You know, I've been wondering something," Phaedra spoke up. 

"What?" 

"The Fates Charm. What did the oracle mean by your wife wanting to get rid of it?" 

"None of your business, Potter," he grunted. 

"So, now I'm just _Potter _to you?" she folded her arms. "C'mon, Malfoy, I know what The Fates Charm is, I know how it functions… but who have you put it on? Your wife?" 

Draco heaved a huge sigh, knowing that this woman wouldn't leave him alone until he answered her question. "No, it's been put on her dad, and not even by me, but my dad. Satisfied now?" 

"Yeah, quite a bit," she nodded. "You Malfoys are real bastards, you know." 

"Thanks," he propped his chin into his hand, staring out the window again. 

"I bet you blackmailed her into this marriage with this charm." 

"Why'd you think so?" he drawled. 

"Simple. Harry told me how much he and Ginny had loved each other. Then, one day, totally unexpectedly she just married you. He had no idea, why. But now it's obvious that you made her, with the help of The Fates Charm." 

"Bingo, Potter. That's how it happened. Now will you leave me alone?" 

She pretended not to have heard him. "Do you realise that if they manage to free your wife, then she'll leave you?" 

"That's big news," he growled. "Lucky that we caught the five o'clock bus, then we'll be on Delos in…" he pulled a richly adorned golden watch out of his pocket, "five hours." 

"Yes, let's hope so," she nodded. "I must tell that I despise what you're doing to your wife to keep her around, but if her freedom means that I lose my husband, then I'd rather see her back in your dirty hands, Malfoy." 

"Good that we understand each other this wonderfully," he smirked sarcastically and directed his attention back to the fish outside. 

* * * * * 

They had been sailing for about ten minutes now, without any disturbance. At first it had been quite difficult for Harry and Ginny to get the ship going, since neither of them knew anything about steering, but Harry quickly got the hang of it. 

The sea was tranquil and wide, stretching as far as the eye could reach. 

"I can't really imagine how this could be another room in the Row of Gods," Harry said. "No room is big enough to house a whole sea, is it? Bet we've long left Delos." 

Ginny waved. "You're not thinking abstractly enough again, Harry. Use your imagination and you'll be able to imagine anything, for example that we're still on Delos, and the sea is indeed inside of some room, but it's magicked to seem so vast…" 

"Possible," he shrugged, "though still hard to believe." 

A seagull swept across the sky above them. Harry managed to jerk Ginny out of the way of its droppings just in time. 

"Wow, you have great reflexes," she said, nestling herself into his arms that were still clutching her. 

"Not always," he sighed. "My reflexes failed me in the room of Ares." 

"Does your back still hurt?" she slid her hands gently from his shoulder to his back, caressing it. Even her feather-light touch made him wince. 

"No, it doesn't." 

"Yes, it does!" 

"Doesn't." 

"Does…" 

"Ssshhh!" Harry pressed his index finger to his lips. 

"What?" 

"Can you hear that?" 

"What?" she looked around. 

"I don't know…" he let go of her and stepped to the rail. "Heavens…" 

"Heavens what?" she ran to him, but he didn't need to reply, for she understood it at once. 

They were heading for the largest whirlpool imaginable. 

Not wanting to waste a single second, Harry Apparated to the helm and grabbed it, frantically turning it right as quick as he could. "Ginny, furl the sail!" 

"Furl it? How? I'm no sailor, for Poseidon's sake!" she yelled back. "Which string should I pull or how should I do it?" 

"Aren't you a witch?" he shouted. 

"Oh, yeah!" she slapped her forehead and pointed her wand at the sail, casting a Vanishing Charm on it. Harry shot her a 'you-could've-done-it-otherwise-you-know' stare. "Well, it doesn't propel the ship anymore, does it?" she asked. 

"Surely it doesn't," he replied through gritted teeth, still jerking the helm right to turn the ship starboard and put as much distance between the _Hermione_ and the whirlpool as possible. 

"A little more to the right!" yelled Ginny. 

"Easy to say," he grunted, sweating profusely as he tried fighting the forces of nature. His hands had already turned red and sore and all he could think of for a chance of survival was to steer the helm by magic. 

"Ginny, come up to the bridge!" he shouted, feeling that he no more could hold the helm like that, his arms got cramp, but he needed both hands to keep the ship going right, he couldn't let go of the helm for a single second to whip out his wand. 

She joined him on the bridge in no time. "What can I help with?" 

"Try to make the wheel turn right with magic," he panted, screwing up his face to try and levitate his own wand out of his back pocket. He had sometimes done wandless magic, but he was too exhausted and hurt to do it now, it needed one hundred percent concentration. 

"Okay, I'll try," she nodded, her face white with anxiety. She pointed her wand at the helm, giving it a magical boost. Harry had to yank his hands back, because the wheel started spinning like mad in the right direction. 

"I think we've did it!" he whooped happily as the Hermione drifted considerably to the right. 

"I… I'm not sure…" gulped Ginny, staring at something that came into the sight – something that the ship was directly sailing at.   
The young wizard turned around and a sharp intake of breath told Ginny that even the Hero Harry got frightened. 

"Scylla?" he muttered. 

"Must be… she has six heads," Ginny replied, her heart hammering at her throat. "Can't we avoid her somehow?" 

"Hardly. If we try to avoid her, we've got to sail to port, but there's Charybdis… We're in a trap." 

"Great," she sighed as the ship approached the monster more and more. Scylla was already hungrily stretching her six long necks towards the dinner that was so kindly sailing right at her. "Can't you freeze her in time?" 

"Nope. Scylla is remotely related to dragons," he replied darkly. "But I think we could…" 

"What?" 

"Oh, of course we could!" he slapped his forehead with a 'how-could-I-have-been-this-stupid?' expression. "We were trying to avoid Charybdis instead of making_ it_ avoid us." 

"What???" Ginny was getting really confused. 

"A Portcharm," he replied. She just frowned, bewildered. "Watch me." 

"What's the spell for it?" she asked, before he started to show her whatever he had in mind. 

"No spell, just concentration. Imagine it hovering… towards the monster." 

With that he pointed his wand at the whirlpool, screwing up his face in concentration. Slowly, very slowly the water around the whirlpool stirred and started to sever itself from the rest of the water. It was the weirdest thing Ginny had ever seen: as though some invisible scissors had cut the waves around the whirlpool, making the whirlpool detach itself from the sea. 

Beads of sweat were running down the sides of Harry's face that reddened with the effort he was making. "Help," he wheezed as he levitated the whirlpool from the sea. 

With a great deal of scepticism, Ginny pointed her wand at the flying whirlpool and focused her mind on trying to keep it in the air. Well, making a feather fly with _Wingardium Leviosa_ was definitely easier… 

"Just a little more, Ginny…" Harry panted as Charybdis slowly floated towards Scylla. The sea monster clearly didn't know what to expect, she had never seen a flying whirlpool, so she found it too interesting to think it could be dangerous. 

"And now… let's surprise little Scyllie, shall we?" said Harry with a vicious grin. "On the count of three." 

"Okay. One… two… three…" 

Ginny and Harry jerked their wands in the sea monster's direction, making the whirlpool zoom right at it, then ended their magical grip on the whirlpool. 

"Cool," said Ginny admiringly as Scylla got swallowed by Charybdis. Now they only had to steer the _Hermione_ to port as quickly as possible. They both pointed their wands at the helm that began to spin to the left, turning the ship away from the now satiated whirlpool. 

"You know, levitating a feather is much easier than levitating a whirlpool," she remarked as the ship reached peaceful waters again. 

"Yeah… size does matter, doesn't it?" he winked at her. 

"Just don't say this in front of Yoda," she grinned back. 

"Don't tell me you've seen Star Wars with Michael, too." 

"No, actually I saw it with Bill and Percy." 

"Percy?" Harry raised an eyebrow. 

"Uh-huh. Bill and me became huge Star Wars fans, but Percy said it was the worst film he'd ever seen… not that he's seen many movies… I think the only other movie he saw was Dead Poets' Society, but he loved it. He said it was an 'artistic' movie while Star Wars just a stupid made up story." 

"Typical Percy," Harry grimaced. "He'd love anything boring and depressing, wouldn't he?" 

"Yeah," she nodded. "What'd you think, is this task over?" 

"No idea… but I can't really see the end of the sea yet," he replied. 

"Neither can I," she sighed, propping her elbows on the rail on the bridge, gazing onto skyline of ever-dancing waves. It was close to sunset, the sun ready to disappear below the horizon. 

"Is that an island?" he pointed at a dark dot. 

"Must be," she replied, straining her eyes to see what it was. Something was moving on the island: three golden shapes. 

As they got nearer, the golden shapes turned out to be the golden hair of three… 

"Sirens?" Ginny made a disgusted expression. "Again?" 

"Mmmphh… they seem to be the mermaid-type sirens," Harry stated. Indeed, three gorgeous women were languidly sitting on the small, rocky island, their fins splashing idly to the rhythm of the song they were singing. 

As the _Hermione_ reached the island, the sirens' song got louder so that Harry and Ginny could understand the words of it.   
Ginny got more and more miffed by the second, listening to the three blonde sirens' song, for it was mostly about kinky things they'd do to Harry if he only left the ship and joined them… 

"Sorry, ladies, I'm not interested," Harry yelled down at them. 

The three sirens looked up, baffled. No man had ever spoken to them – men just left their ships to their song to get drowned by them afterwards… why was this idiot talking to them then? And why wasn't he interested in them? 

The three sirens exchanged meaningful looks and continued their song, but much louder than before. 

"Haven't you heard him, merchicks? He's not interested!" Ginny shouted. 

"Who the hell do you think you are to say whether he's interested or not?" huffed one of the sirens. 

"She's my fiancée, well sort of," Harry replied, putting an arm around Ginny's shoulder. "So no use, ladies, I'm too much in love with her to want your services. But if you'd like, I'd gladly sing a quartet with you. Do you know the song '_What shall we do with a drunken sailor'_?" 

The three blondies looked at each other, horrified, their expressions radiating: 'swim for your life, this bloke's a raving maniac!'   
With a loud splash the sirens disappeared into the sea. 

"Hm… it seems they don't like that song," Harry shrugged. "Pity." 

"What is this strange noise, Harry?" 

"What?" he perked up his ears, listening. 

Indeed, there was something funny going on… something was roaring, and it wasn't the usual sound of the sea… it rather sounded like a… 

"Waterfall," breathed Ginny. 

"Waterfall?" Harry knitted his eyebrows. "Come on, why would a waterfall be in a sea? Surely the sea's not flowing down a waterfall?" 

Ginny's eyes widened at the mere mental image of Harry's words, then, in the next instant, she was running towards the prow.   
"Oh, no!" 

Harry Apparated next to her. "Shit." 

He Apparated back to the bridge, pointing his wand at the helm to try and make it turn the ship around. Soon Ginny arrived to assist him. 

The _Hermione_ started to turn, but slowly, too slowly… she was drifting closer and closer to the end of the sea, where it simply ran down into the abyss… into nothingness. 

"Don't give up!" Harry shouted to out-bellow the roaring of the enormous waterfall. 

"I'm not giving up!" she yelled back, gritting her teeth in effort to keep the ship from tumbling down into the abyss. 

"Whatever happens, Ginny, I love you!" he bellowed, his voice getting muffled by the ear-splitting noise the waterfall was producing. 

"I love you too!" she shouted back, her wand-free hand grabbing Harry's wand-free one. 

For a second the _Hermione _teetered on the verge of the fall, then gravity took possession of her, pulling her over the bottomless precipice.   
  


**A/N**: if you had trouble imagining what the Polybious square looks like, then take a look at the link I put into my bio, among the artlinks, it'll surely help.   
I know that I could as well have made H and G levitate Scylla into Charbydis, but I thought that levitating a whirlpool was much cooler than levitating a monster... 

_Blaubaerin_: yup, Tom read Hogwarts a History, it's mentioned in the prologue. Don't worry, Phaedra is more feminine than Xena, and much leaner. Also her hair is wavy, while Xena's is straight. In which musical was 'you just wait...' (My fair lady, perhaps?) You never sent me climbing pictures - so please, send some :) (but first make sure they are smaller than 100 KB, okay? thanks!) Spiro won't die if that's what you mean ;) No, I haven't read The Phantom. 

_Mistri, Tonks' Admirer_: obviously you didn't learn about the Row of Gods in History, because that's something that I made up. 

_Jaquelyne:_ tell me when your fic with Dax is up, okay? As far as I know, Hera isn't the goddess of Earth, she's the Queen of Gods. The goddess of Earth is Gaia. Did Maggie Smith play in the Clash of Titans? I should watch that movie, then :) It's funny that lately I've seen loads of films with her in them! 

_Alexander Phoenix_: yeah, that's unfortunately right, and you'll see why in the next chapter. 

_Black Ice_: I'm aware that Voldie was ooc in the last chapter, and I have apologised for it there in the A/N. I just couldn't resist the temptation to write something stupid about him and the Death Eaters. Since dark times are coming in the fic, the comic relief was needed. Perhaps Amrita would still be able to adjust to Harry... we'll see whether she has the chance at all... 

_hypnotic-babe_: to the D/P question: the answer will be in chapter 16. Not that far away ;) Yeah, Draco sort of meant that he loved Ginny. 

_Kit Cloudkicker_: I don't think I need another baby name book - for example my baby name book told me the meaning of 'Amrita' perfectly - I talked to an Indian friend and she said that it meant exactly what I read in my book. 

_OfTheWest:_ I hope your finals went okay (or if they are still to come, then good luck with them! Yes, I can relate *shudders*). Good thinking about the baby :D 

_Princess Ginny:_ yes, Draco and Phaedra will start liking each other :) 

_Elfy19_: okay, I'll kill him off, just for you *jk* Actually I haven't killed him in any of my fics so far... so perhaps it's time to kill him for real? *looks enigmatic* 

_Katrina Littlebird:_ H and G aren't trying to reach for a balm. They are trying to talk to the Fates and ask them to lift the Fates Curse. You'll see in the next chapter. 

_Wizzabee_: I have mentioned quite many animals from Fantastic Beasts in my fics. In Scandal I mentioned the fwooper and ther runespoor, in Shame the pogrebins and the Ukrainian Ironbelly. In this one I mentioned the hippocampuses. Which one of these did you draw? 

_Noemi:_ dunno why I always give Draco Muggle things to love... I just find it funny, that's all. 

_K. C. Hunter_: I didn't know that there was a Megara AND a Megaera, thanks for the information. My condolences about Aunt Barbara :( 

_caramelLiSsa_: Ginny can say 'fates', but she isn't allowed to say 'Fates Charm'. I know what you mean, it always feels nice to realise that you know things like the Styx. You'll even see the Styx in the next chappie :) 

_HelLO:_ yeah, you're right, perhaps the 'it makes me feel uneasy' came from EPII... sometimes I don't realise that I take phrases from movies ;) 

_Indigo Ziona:_ LOL, I didn't even think of you-Helen when I wrote Helen, but it must feel funny for you. I think I'd also feel funny if a Greek character in a fic was called Agnes (which wouldn't be impossible, because Agnes is a Greek name). 

_C-chan1_: thanks, glad you think I draw well :) Yes, of course the planets are named after Roman gods everywhere, not only in the USA :) Actually tritons are also some sea-creatures in the Greek mythology, I just don't exactly know what sort of... No, I don't think that Cho will ever really get over Cedric. A cat named Luna? LOL. Oliver Wood? LOL. Is this otaku mascot an anime type person? Judging by its name it sounds Japanese. About Adela knowing it was a girl: perhaps wizards have special charms to tell the sex of their child-to-be-born. Remember the spell Hermione used in Shame to establish whether she was pregnant or not? A little spark appeared in front of her (two in her case, for she was with twins). There could be an advanced type of this charm, and if you're carrying a son then the spark would be blue, if it's a girl, then the spark will be pink :) 

_TrixieFirecracker_: the 'shagging each other senseless' part comes in the next chapter :) Harry _will _come to terms with the fact that Ginny might not want to raise Amrita. Things might change... there's still 17 chapters ahead of us, so a lot will happen. More than it has happened so far. 

_Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: you gave me a veeery scaaary mental image about Hermione going out with Voldemort! ;) Someone should write a fic about it :D :D :D 

_Nefertiri:_ nice to see you again and good luck on your exam! And happy belated birthday! :) Yes, Ron and Hermione will appear in the fic, along with the other Weasleys, Hagrid, Neville, Luna, McGonagall and even *gasp* Gilderoy Lockhart will have a cameo (I just can't leave my fave character out, can I? ;) However, the story will always revolve around Harry, Ginny and Draco, the others are just supporting characters. 

_iNiGmA_: no, Amrita doesn't have special powers, but Voldie still needs her. You'll see why later. I think I have lost the link to your site. Could you give it to me again? Thanks! 

_Clemens_: I'm happy to see you here again! Don't disappear again, okay? ;) 

_moony*padfoot_: I never thought you were self-centered! 

_ruffled owl_: yeah, I'm giving the characters comical edges, because the story needs some comic relief. Especially in the near future, for it'll get slightly darker soon. 

_Hermione We@s!ey_: I hope your finals went well! 

_Paige_: you made me rotfl with the mental image of Draco in loincloth, carrying action figures. LOL :D 

_ayse_: I hope your finals went well. If you still have some before you, then good luck with them! What does Voldie do to Amrita? You'll get to know in chapter 19. H/G lovemaking in the next chapter :))) 

_Swanny_: Spiro is going to get into trouble and might be tortured, but I promise you: he'll survive :) Sometimes ffnet forgets to send author alerts about new chapters - dunno why. 

_Inken_: Cedric Chang? LOL. But Cho and Michael's son is very likely called Cedric Corner ;) 

_Sparkle Tangerine_: I'm glad I could give you a nice b-day present :) I think that at first Wormtail took care of Amrita in order to pay his debt to Harry, but later on he got to love the child so much that now he isn't doing it for the debt anymore. Glad you liked the peacock-feather comment, it'll return once more in a rather funny way ;) Actually I don't need Kati's ideas for the 'shagfest' in chapter 15, I have rather interesting (and hilarious) ideas on my own :D Too bad I'll have to cut most of them out of the version I'll submit to SIYE (it's a purely H/G site if you don't know), because the mods are so terribly prudish there that they wouldn't accept the original version :( 

_Eclectus_: time freezing will appear again, yeah. I like its idea, it's cool (apparently others like it too, because I've read a fic that has so-to-say 'plagiarised' it from me - and I'm sure that it was taken from me, because that author has been reading and reviewing my fic before he put the time freezing charm into _his_ fic ;). No, it isn't the Fates Charm making Ginny barren, she got barren because she had had a childhood disease (Draco mentioned this to Phaedra in chapter 12). Yes, the shamed one is Harry. Good luck on _your _exams, too! 

_MilesFromNormal:_ most of the things come from Greek mythology, yeah. But some are my creation, like the Row of Gods. The gods and goddesses mentioned really come from Greek mythology. The pseudonyms won't get Harry into trouble, but he already got Spiro into trouble by using his name. 

_marueen:_ Amrita is cute everywhere, not only inside your head ;) You'll find out what her name means in chapter 19. What? My cliffies has made you immune to cliffhangers in general? LOL. 

_Chrissi:_ I'm sorry about your loss, and thanks, glad you like the story. 

_Myr Halcyon_: no, H/G haven't shagged yet, they will, in the next chapter ;) If D/P manage to catch up with their spouses, then Ginny WON'T be happy, I can guarantee you that. I don't even know who this Ed is... 

_Embyr Black_: sorry but no one will kill Draco and Phaedra ;) 

_Dragon21:_ yep, Draco/Phaedra. 

_Cloudzi1_: no, I haven't been to that site yet. Is it a Xena fansite? I wouldn't say I'm a Xena fan. I like Xena all right, but I'm not a fan - Draco _is _;) 

_Written in Stars:_ hi, Ari! :) Ginny's baby will be born in chapter 23. 

Also thanks to: _dementorchic, rebkos, Chelsea of the Moor, sweet775, xxGinnyxx, Altec, TaMaraR, apple-pie, Romina, Wood's secret lover, hi-voltage, goldenstar555_


	15. Only Death can Part Us

**Author's note in May, 2005:** this chapter, as many others in many of my fics has been reuploaded since it had lyrics in it that I had to delete (and I didn't trust ffnet's quick-edit). 

**Chapter 15**

Only death can part us

It felt like an eternity - they were falling, falling into the nothingness below, seawater cascading onto the board of the tumbling _Hermione_, drenching her two unfortunate passengers who were clinging to each other Harry holding onto the banister with one hand, to Ginny with the other; their eyes shut, their faces buried in each other's dripping hair, not wanting to see, not wanting to hear, trying to close out the world of destruction… just die like that, in each other's arms…

Then, with a loud splash their ship touched down.

Harry carefully opened his eyes. "Ginny!" he whispered to the girl whose eyes were still shut, as though she feared that the second she'd open them, she'd die.

"Ginny, open your eyes!" he said somewhat louder, gently running a hand through her damp red locks.

"Are we dead?" she asked, keeping her eyes shut.

"Dunno… but I don't think so," he replied. "Look…"

Blinking to clear her eyes of the salty seawater, Ginny squinted around at something that looked like an underground cave. Their ship seemed to have fallen onto a lake - or was that a river? She couldn't decide, for water was flowing down into it from above, but the lake on which the _Hermione_ was swaying now, didn't seem to be flowing anywhere. It seemed so that water was continually filling the lake, and although there wasn't a river/creek that could have channelled the water out of it, the lake's level wasn't rising at all.

"Is the sea running down here from above?" she wondered, looking at the huge waterfall that served as one of the cave's walls.

"Seems so."

"But then… why hasn't the whole sea come down here yet?"

"No idea, must be magic." He shrugged, examining their surroundings more properly.

Not far away from the lake their ship was floating on, there was a smaller pond into which crystal clear water was gurgling in rivulets from nearby rocks. He could hear croaking - the pond must have been home to frogs. A beam of light was coming from above - presumably through a fissure in the cave's rocky ceiling - coming right onto the tiny pool, making its water glitter in the semi-darkness.

"Remember that picture from the Tunnel of Zeus?" asked Ginny. "The fourth picture depicted a small pond with a tiny waterfall running into it. This means we've managed to tackle Poseidon's task and we're in the fourth room already."

"Yeah… but which Greek god could this room, or cave, or whatever belong to?" mused Harry.

"No idea. Come, let's investigate this place," she suggested, climbing down the rope ladder fixed to the ship's side, trying the water with her feet - it still seemed solid in the same weird way it had before they came aboard the _Hermione_. With a deep breath she stepped onto the waves, and let out a relieved sigh: the charm making her feather-light was still working. Harry followed her down the ladder and onto the shore, moving with difficulty - his back was still tormenting him.

"You'll have to teach me this charm, it's great walking on the water. But now I'm happier than ever to be on solid land again," she said, fighting down the urge to crouch down and kiss the soil.

"Yeah… our clothes no longer fit," replied Harry and changed his pirate-attire back into his normal clothes, and Ginny's sailor outfit back into her yellow summer dress.

"I think I'll miss Harry the Pirate." She smiled. "He was deliciously sexy."

"Why, isn't the normal Harry deliciously sexy?" He pouted, pretending to be hurt.

"Of course he is… but I can't help it, I have a thing about blokes with earrings." She winked at him. "You know that Bill's always been my favourite brother…"

"My, does this mean I'll have to grow my hair and fasten it into a ponytail?"

"I wouldn't mind… but I doubt it'd look this messy if you did so, and I'd miss the messy quality of your hair, too."

"Women." Harry rolled his eyes theatrically. "You're so hard to please."

"Would you look at that!" she said suddenly.

"What?"

"That." She pointed at a marble statue half hidden in the undergrowth around the pool. The statue depicted a wizened man with long beard. "Who could this be?" Ginny wondered.

Harry pointed his wand at the grass at the statue's feet and Vanished it. A small board became visible with the name Aesculapius.

"Aesculapius? The God of Healing?" Ginny knitted her eyebrows. "Why would the Row of Gods contain a room of Aesculapius? He's just a minor god, after all…"

As an answer to her question, the statue stirred and the old man spoke to them: "Welcome, brave travellers who have fought with Ares' creatures, solved Athena's riddle and tackled Poseidon's dangerous task. My room is here to serve as a resting place after the difficulties, a place where you can refill yourselves with energy and heal the wounds you've got in your battles with foul creatures. Before you enter the last room of the Row of Gods - that of Hades - you need to become whole again, for the toughest task awaits you there. Enjoy my room, travellers, use the pond that heals all ailments and wounds… and let me wish you good luck with the last task."

With that the statue became rigid again, as though it had never moved.

"Hm, these Greek gods are quite nice, if they installed a room to get healed before moving on to the hardest task," said Harry. "If only the organisers of the Triwizard Tournament had been this gracious… but no, there you had no chance to pull yourself together after a fight with a Skrewt."

"Uh-huh," she nodded absent-mindedly. "How'd you take this feather-light charm off your feet?"

"Simply say _Finite Incantatem_," he replied, ending the charm's effect on himself.

"All right, then, _Finite Incantatem_." Ginny pointed her wand at her feet, then took her shoes off and felt the water in the pond with her toes. "It's pleasantly warm. Go in, Harry, your sore back definitely needs some healing."

"Yeah, it does." He nodded and started to undress.

Ginny turned around immediately, biting into her lower lip at the mental image hovering in front of her eyes: Harry floating on his back… drops of water glistening on his chest and…

She started whistling the main theme of Bridge over the River Kwai to take her thoughts off images of Harry's anatomy. It was no use, though, especially when he called out to her: "Care to join me?"

"Join you? Er, no, thanks." She shook her head, still determinedly gazing in the _Hermione_'s direction, away from the pool.

"Don't be so prudish, Gin, I promise I won't peek."

"I'm not prudish!" she snapped, turning around.

"Yes, you are." He grinned up at her.

"Am not." Ginny folded her arms. "And I'm going to prove it… I'll join you in there… just close your eyes until I get in."

"As the lady wishes." He closed his eyes.

Ginny started to get rid of her clothing, casting a glance at him once in a while to check whether he was peeping, and she caught herself half wishing that he _was_ peeping… She wondered what he'd think of her if he saw her nude… would he think of such dirty things like she had on the beach only a couple of hours earlier? No, she chastised herself, surely Harry's mind wasn't as dirty as hers - or was it?

However, no matter how much she wanted, she couldn't catch him peeking, he obediently kept his eyes shut. She slid into the water and submerged into it deep enough to cover her to her neck. Not that the water wasn't crystal clear thus totally see-through, but if she kept her distance, then it'd be possible that he would only see a hazy outline of her body.

Then again… did she really want to keep her distance? Did she really want him to not see her…? Her mind was in a turmoil, her heart feeling even more confused. Her mind told her to stay as far away from him as possible, while her heart spurred her on to swim to him so that he could see her and she could see him, so that he could touch her and she could touch him in return…

She simply didn't understand the controversial emotions fighting each other in her soul, she had never felt this helpless, this bewildered, this lost… Chewing her lower lip, she squinted at Harry, wondering what could be going on in his head, but he seemed to be rather interested in examining the cave's ceiling, for he wasn't even looking at her.

The real reason for Harry not looking at Ginny was that he was having similar thoughts: swim to her or not swim to her? Check her out through the water, or not check her out? To be or not to be burning with desire for her? Well, the latter was something one couldn't choose to happen or not to happen, and Harry couldn't help feeling that he'd suffocate if he couldn't touch her this instant, but, in the meantime, something also held him back from crossing those four metres separating her from him…

He couldn't understand himself, why he was having these inhibitions, he hadn't had any of them when he'd slept with the fake Cho, and when he'd got to know Phaedra, he'd bedded her practically two days after they first met… and he'd have slept with Ginny in Atlantis if the Death Eaters hadn't prevented it… so what was the problem now? He couldn't explain it to himself. He wished she'd make the first step, then he'd no longer hold himself back… but she had coyly withdrawn into the farthest part of the pond and didn't show any sign of wanting to make any sort of a step.

Careful to avoid her eyes, he cast a sideways glance at her. Ginny, who had been secretly feasting her eyes on him, hastily looked away, pretending to be highly absorbed in examining the mossy ground around the pool.

_Good, she's looking away, not seeing that I'm peeking_, he thought, adjusting his glasses to have a more proper look. Although the water blurred her figure slightly, his magical glasses saw through it without any difficulty…

_Should I look back at him?_ Ginny pondered, staring at the moss. In the next instant a huge frog leapt out from a knot of grass and landed on the moss a mere ten inches from her.

She had been so deeply immersed in her thoughts that the sudden appearance of the frog frightened her, making her jump at least two metres backwards.

Harry got shaken out of his blissful reverie when she jumped and backed away from the opposite shore of the pond.

"What?" he asked.

"J… just a frog," replied Ginny, her voice slightly shaking, but as far as Harry could tell, it wasn't shaking with fright, but with some sort of suppressed laughter. Clearly even Ginny found it ridiculous that a frog could scare her like that. "Just a little frog…" She chuckled, but still kept retreating from the animal that was now happily croaking on the mossy shore.

"A frog? Are you sure that's not a toad?" asked Harry, deciding to move aside so that if she kept backing away from the animal, she wouldn't walk right into him… but by the time he realised that he should move aside, he also realised that there was no space for him to move, for she was already pressed up to him.

"Er, Harry…? What…?" she asked as she felt something poke her in the small of her back.

"That? Just a frog, I suppose," replied Harry, praying that she'd move away from him.

"Are you sure that's a frog?" she asked over her shoulder, an impish grin spreading on her face.

"Well… it could just as easily be a toad, of course," Harry replied, twiddling his thumbs and trying to sound indifferent, which was rather difficult in the current situation.

"Or rather an eel," she suggested. "I mean, it felt sort of longish…" she said, having to press her hand onto her mouth to prevent a giggle from escaping it, but from the mad shaking of her shoulders he could tell that she was soundlessly laughing.

"That's not funny," he grunted.

Still shaking with silent laughter, she turned around, and seeing the sour expression on his face, she could no more hold back the giggles that burst out of her, echoing through the cavern.

"Now honestly, just imagine yourself in my place," Harry said in a whiny voice, gazing at the ceiling, "having a beautiful woman like you in a pond with yourself… any eel would get excited."

"I can't," she replied between two chuckles. "Can't imagine myself in your place… I wouldn't get excited if I were in a pond with a woman like me, you know… but…" she sneaked her arms around his neck, and her voice changed from the giggly, girlish one into a deeper, huskier one, "I'm excited enough about having you here."

"Ginny." He gulped, gazing deeply into her chocolate brown eyes.

"Yes, Harry?" she whispered.

"Don't tease me anymore," he said gently, touching his forehead to hers.

"Only if you'll stop teasing me," she replied, losing herself in the infinite emerald pools of his eyes.

"Can't promise that… it's too nice to tease you." He smiled mischievously, slightly shifting his face so that he could kiss her, but she drew back a bit. "What's the problem?"

"I… I don't know," she sighed, turning her face away from his. "It's just that I…"

"You're… you're afraid?" This was rather a statement than a question.

"I'm sorry…" she whispered with a pleading expression. "I-"

She couldn't finish whatever she wanted to say, for he put his index finger on her lips. "I'm not Draco Malfoy, Ginny," he said quietly. "I don't know what exactly he did to you to make you this afraid, but trust me and I'll make you forget it, whatever it was. Do you trust me?"

Though somewhat hesitantly, she nodded. "I trust you. Teach me, Harry… teach me to love."

As a response, he brushed his lips against hers, feather-light, then they descended on her neck, imitating the touch of the petals of a tender blossom… Where was the rudeness that Draco had always shoved her onto the bed with? Ginny didn't know… the always so vivid images of her husband moaning with delight while she was fighting with tears and praying he'd end it at last got suddenly so distant and fuzzy that Ginny wasn't even sure they had ever been real… hadn't she just dreamt them? She couldn't tell, but before she could ponder whether they had been real, whether they had ever happened, they got chased out of her mind by Harry's kisses that caught her like some whirlwind… she felt dizzy, the world around her got blurred, so she just let this whirlwind pick her up and take her wherever it pleased.

For what seemed to be hours, the whirlwind raged, buffeting her, tearing at her, but not for a single second did she long for it to end… it was a sweet torment, she craved for more of it… the thought flashed through her mind that if she died now, then she'd die happier than she'd ever felt before… She just clung to Harry, who seemed to be the cause of the whirlwind but also the only person who could catch her if she got too caught up in it; he was the one taking her into heaven, but also the one who took her back to reality with an earth-shattering explosion…

Suddenly the wind stopped raging and everything went silent Ginny wondered why the walls of the cave weren't echoing the boom of the explosion - or had the explosion taken place inside of her head? Through half-closed eyelids she glanced at Harry, who was gasping for breath, his glasses had somehow fogged up (for the first time in his life he had forgotten to take them off before lovemaking) and she couldn't see his eyes properly, but she was sure they were fixed upon her face.

"You okay?" he whispered, trying to sound calm, but his chest was rising and falling rapidly and his heart was hammering loudly against his ribcage - she could feel its quick beat as she was pressed to him, clinging to him as for dear life… as though she feared she's die the second she released him.

"Yeah… yeah I think so…" she panted. "Did the cannon on the _Hermione_ go off?"

"Cannon?" He blinked. "It's an ancient Greek ship, Ginny. And ancient Greek ships didn't have cannons. Neither does the _Hermione_."

"Then… what exploded?" she asked. Seeing his amused expression, she started to feel uneasy. "I know it must be a stupid question, but… I seriously don't know."

"Ginny," he chuckled, cupping her chin. "There was no explosion… But I know it feels like that… at least it always _should_ feel like that… But I bet that bastard of a husband you have never cared to show you what it should be like."

"Oh." Her eyes widened. "So, that… no, he really never cared. Not that he would have been able to properly show me because…" She leaned a bit closer, as though fearing that someone would overhear them. "…because he's not nearly… I mean… Yoda really wasn't right: size does matter."

Harry's mouth tucked into a slightly derisive smirk at the mental image of Draco lecturing Ginny, 'Size doesn't matter', and then Ginny answering, 'The small always say so'.

"What?" she asked at the sight of his wide grin.

"Nothing, I just feel sorry for Draco." He winked at her.

"I don't. Let's not talk about him, shall we?" she purred and leaned forward to kiss him again. He kissed her back with passion, and when a new whirlwind was about to pick them up, they heard someone clear their throat.

Harry and Ginny jumped aside with horrified expressions.

"Er… don't worry, it's just me," said the statue of Aesculapius, gazing at his feet, as though too embarrassed to look at them, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but you are healed, and you can no longer linger in my room. You have to continue your journey in the Row of Gods." With that he pointed at one of the cave's walls on which a doorway appeared - a doorway covered with a black curtain.

"Thank you, Aesculapius," said Harry, staring at the curtain, feeling his heart freeze. Memories of Sirius' death rushed back to him and he didn't even realise that his hands had clenched into fists.

The statue had gone rigid again, and Harry stood there in the pool just as rigid as the statue itself.

Knowing what could be going through his mind, Ginny gently squeezed his arm. "Hey, let's get dressed, shall we?"

He nodded grimly and climbed out of the pool.

* * *

As the black curtain fell back into place behind their backs, the couple found themselves in something that didn't resemble a room at all - it rather seemed to be a vast, greyish land with wisps of smoke drifting in the gloomy air. The sky was dark, almost black, but no star could be seen on it - it resembled a heavily overcast sky that threatened to start raining any second. The soil was parched, without any trace of life, not even the smallest weed found this place suitable for living.

A river of murky water crossed the 'room', flowing glumly towards a point where it simply moulded into the darkness.

"Something's moving on the water," whispered Ginny, slipping her hand into Harry's, to seek encouragement and support in his touch.

"A boat," said Harry, and indeed, the moving shape turned out to be a balding, pale, very thin - almost skeletal - person rowing along the river. As he spotted them, he directed his boat towards the point where they were standing on the shore.

The skeletal person glared at them with a slightly surprised expression. "You're alive," he said.

"Yes, we know," Harry replied. "And?"

"This is the underworld, fellow. I haven't seen living people here for over a millennium. That was the last time someone visited the Row of Gods, wanting to ask a favour of The Fates," said the boatman. "I'm Charon, by the way. It's my task to take the dead over the River Styx, into Hades' world… but what should I do with you? You're obviously not dead."

Harry looked at Ginny. "Well, Aesculapius said that we'd have to meet our final task in Hades' room, that symbolises Hades' world. So… I s'pose we'll have to ask him to take us over the river, what do you think?"

"I agree," she answered, then turned to the boatman. "Would you be so kind and transport us over the Styx, Mr Charon?"

Charon scratched his jaw contemplatively. "Hm… this is against the law, you know that?"

"Please." Ginny fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Couldn't you make an exception just this once?"

"Er…" the boatman blushed slightly. "Well… I've never been asked by such a pretty lady to ferry her over the Styx, especially not a living one… Okay, get in the boat, both of you… just be careful when you get in, the water's extremely deep, it's as deep around the shore as it is at the middle of the river… There, okay, sit down now, and I'd be grateful if you didn't mention this to my boss…"

"We won't tell on you, you can be sure, Mr Charon. Thanks," said Ginny and pecked the boatman on the cheek, making him turn as red as the setting sun.

"Really, no need to…" he muttered, not looking at her, but almost dropping the oars in his confused embarrassment.

Harry sent Ginny a look of admiration, which she returned with a radiant smile. She felt so wonderful, even here, in the land of death. She felt as though she had been filled with some mysterious energy, something that burst out of her through her smile. She had always fantasised about sleeping with Harry, but she never thought it'd make such a difference… she felt reborn.

It took about five minutes for Charon to cross the river with them, and as the opposite bank loomed closer, a huge form became more and more distinct ahead of them. The huge form stirred and let out a roar.

"Shut up, Cerberus," grunted Charon and pulled a bag of dog food out of his pocket. "Here boy, eat this, not our guests."

The huge, vicious, three-headed dog suddenly seemed to be reduced to a playful puppy, standing on its hind legs, madly waggling its tail.

"There's a good boy, Cerberus," said the boatman jovially and threw the 'puppy' a snack. "While he's eating, you can pass beside him," he told the couple - or to put it right: he was talking to Ginny only, pretending that Harry didn't exist.

Ginny cast a sideways glance at her lover (without realising that she was already thinking of him as her 'lover') to see whether Charon's too enthusiastic wooing was annoying him… but Harry seemed downright amused by it.

"To my greatest regret I cannot accompany you further into Hades' land, fair lady." Bowed the boatman.

"I'm heart-broken, Mr Charon," replied Ginny with her sweetest smile.

So, Harry and Ginny got out of the boat while Charon was chucking dog snacks at the three-headed dog.

"Cute little Fluffy, eh?" Grinned Harry as they got past Cerberus.

"I wouldn't know, would I? Never seen Fluffy," she reminded him, taking his hand again.

"I wonder why Aesculapius said that this room will provide the hardest task," mused Harry as they got further and further into the underworld - into the room symbolising the underworld.

"No idea," she replied in a hushed voice, for this place seemed to be sucking the energies out of her, slowly, gradually… The full of energy state she had been in when entering Hades' room had totally evaporated in the gloomy darkness and the choking, stale air. She no longer felt fresh and strong, her legs began to feel as if they had been filled with lead. All that kept her going was the warm, gentle touch of Harry's palm encircled around her tiny hand.

"Or… perhaps I do have an idea," she carried on. "I don't know about you, but I feel as though something deep inside me was trying to choke me, and some icy, pricking coldness is trying to clench at my heart… this seems hard enough to be part of the task… Are you feeling the same?"

"Uh-huh." He nodded. "It feels a bit like being near a Dementor, but not as bad, just almost. However, we still haven't encountered any sort of obstacle, so I don't know what to think…"

Suddenly some sort of a hazy figure appeared in front of them, approaching them. The figure looked like a huge, black dog… and it leapt at Harry.

"S…Sirius?" The young wizard gasped as the dog started licking his face. "Sirius!" He pulled the dog into a firm hug, and in his embrace, the animal transformed into his godfather.

"Harry! Am I happy to see you!" said Sirius, clearly struggling with tears threatening to flow down his cheeks.

"I… I…" said Harry shakily, barely believing that he was seeing the person who had been closest to a father for him Before he could compose a normal sentence, he caught himself crying, his face buried in Sirius' shoulder-length hair.

Godfather and godson clung to each other, both of them sobbing like little children.

Ginny took several steps back to not disturb them - this was a moment she had no right to intrude on, this was Harry and Sirius' grief, Harry and Sirius' happiness… and she had not much to do with it, after all. So she just watched the happy/teary reunion, leaving the two men to themselves.

"Sirius… I… I can't believe I'm meeting you again," sniffed Harry, who hadn't cried like this since the death of his daughter. "I thought… I thought I'd never see you again… when you… when you fell through that veil, I thought-"

"Shhh!" His godfather hushed him. "It belongs to the past, Harry, do not dwell on the past. Think of happy things instead… for example seeing your parents at last."

"My… parents?" stammered Harry.

"Of course! Here they come." Sirius pointed behind his back where two figures appeared out of the mist.

"Son! I'm so glad to see you!" cheered James and gathered Harry into his arms before the young man could even say 'hi, dad'.

"Don't suffocate him, James," laughed Lily and peeled her husband's arms off their son, only to hug him just as tightly as James had. "Harry… oh, Harry…" Tears were running down the sides of her face. "The last time I held you in my arms was when… when You-Know-Who came… I was so happy when I got here and realised that you hadn't. I knew you were still alive, I knew my magic had succeeded… I knew I had saved you, my darling."

"Mum…" Harry didn't know how to react… he was finally being hugged by his mother. How much he had fantasised about Lily's hug, how often he had imagined what would have happened if his mother hadn't died… on dreamless nights the child Harry had been lying on the full-of-spiders bed in the cupboard under the stairs, weaving fantasies about his mother. He hadn't even known what she'd looked like… the child Harry hadn't had a single photo of his mother, making it extremely difficult for him to imagine her He hadn't known what sort of eyes and hair to imagine when he was thinking of her. His mother had always been so distant, so elusive, and not just because she was dead, but because he couldn't even properly recall her.

And now here she was, not distant anymore, nor elusive, but in his arms, her fragile body pressed against his, his face lost in the mass of her dark red hair that smelled like a mixture of honey and hyacinths… The scent of a mother. The same fragrance Harry had smelled when his mother had been breastfeeding him, or when she had been simply cradling him in her arms, singing a lullaby.

* * *

He hadn't remembered this smell for twenty-two years, but now its memory rushed back to him, the familiarity of the honey-aroma, the sweet fragrance of spring flowers… this was his mother.

The memory of his child self trying desperately to remember Lily Potter came to his mind, remembering the disappointment every time he'd tried and didn't manage to make his mother appear inside of his head.

No fantasies had ever been this beautiful.

Harry looked over Lily's shoulder to see James grinning at him in his usual Marauder style. What is he grinning at? - wondered Harry, then realised that he was crying again. For years and years in his childhood he had managed not to cry, no matter how much he had been bullied by Dudley and his gang… and now, the adult Harry, past so many hardships, with a heart hardened by torments and suffering,_ couldn't_ stop himself from crying.

"Sorry… I'm drenching your hair." He drew back slightly to look his mother in the eye, and was amazed how much her eyes were like his… his own eyes looked back at him, twinkling with excitement and joyous tears.

"It doesn't matter, son. You're free to cry as much on my shoulder as you want," Lily replied gently, cupping Harry's face in both hands. "I couldn't be there for you to console you when you were small… I missed your whole childhood. It's time to make up for it at last."

"Exactly," agreed James, and still grinning widely, slapped Harry's back. "Good to see you again. Have you been told that you're the spitting image of me?"

"Er, yeah, plenty of times…"

"Bet the ladies love you, son, you're just as great a heartthrob as me." James winked.

Lily rolled her eyes. "There's your father for you, Harry. The greatest clown in the whole wide world."

"Don't belittle me in front of our son," said James and put an arm around Harry's shoulder. "I'm not nearly as bad as she says I am."

Harry raised an eyebrow, suddenly thinking of the fifteen-year-old James he'd seen in Snape's Pensieve… that James had been a thousand times worse than he'd imagined. This James here seemed to be not too different from that one: still boyish, looking around Harry's current age, his brown eyes twinkling with mischief… Had his father never properly grown up? - Harry mused.

"Don't take him seriously," whispered Sirius, leaning closer to Harry, "he's just acting the rowdy, but behind the pretence, he'd like to bawl like a baby at seeing you again."

"No, I wouldn't," replied James, who, of course, had perfectly heard his friend's words.

"Oh, yes, you would," said Sirius, laughing.

"You're so immature, Padfoot!" grunted James, folding his arms defiantly.

"Immature? Me?"

"Never mind them, dear, they're doing that all day." Lily waved. "It's fun to listen to them, but after a while they can get really annoying. Come with me, let's talk. We have so much to discuss…"

"Yes, we have mum, but… I can't. See, I've got to get through Hades' world to get to The Fates."

"The Fates?" Lily blinked. "Why?"

"Because of Ginny." Harry looked around, searching for the girl who had withdrawn from them, and was looking at them from quite a distance.

"Is she… your wife?" asked his mother.

"No… but I'd like her to be." Harry smiled. A few feet to their left James and Sirius were now practically shouting with each other. Harry stole an anxious glance at them, but Lily just shook her head.

"They're doing that at least once a week, they love arguing, they say it's fun."

"So, who's mature and who's not?" remarked Harry. "I'm going to call Ginny here, so that you can get to know her."

"No." Lily grabbed his hand.

"Why not?" Frowned Harry.

"Later. Now come with me, let's talk."

"I'd love to, but I really have to go, mum."

However, Lily didn't want to hear about her son leaving. "You can't be this selfish, Harry… I haven't seen you for twenty-two years, and you don't even want to talk to me…" She screwed up her face with an expression threatening to start crying again. 

"She's right, you know," agreed James, his glasses askew and his face bruised at one point. "You should be more grateful to her, after what she did for you, son. On the other hand, I'd also like to talk to you… I've been missing you. Heck, I didn't even have a chance to teach you to play Quidditch!"

"I learned it quite well, though," replied Harry, starting to feel rather uneasy in his parents' presence. Something was wrong with them…

"The point is that you owe you parents a bit of a chat," said Sirius, who was sporting a pretty black eye. "And me, too."

Harry looked at Ginny over his shoulder. She seemed to be calm, but deep inside she must have been seething

_What am I doing here? _Harry asked himself. _I've got to help her get to The Fates, and instead I'm letting myself become distracted. _

"Look, sorry, but I really have to go. We could talk on my way back from The Fates, what do you say?" he suggested to his parents and his godfather.

His mother's eyes filled with tears and his father and Sirius scowled at him accusingly.

"I'm really sorry… but I know this place isn't even real… this is just a virtual reality, a demo version of the underworld… perhaps you three aren't real too…"

"Don't we look real?" Lily sniffed. "Didn't my arms around you feel real, Harry?"

"It could just be magic." The young wizard shrugged. He felt pangs of remorse that he was talking like that to his parents, but what if they weren't even real? What if they were just sent here to prevent him from getting further?

"Then tell me: isn't she real?" said Lily, and waved, as though beckoning to someone.

In the next instant a small figure appeared out of the mist.

"Daddy!"

Harry thought he'd die on the spot.

"D…Daffy?"

The little girl was running towards him, her tiny arms outstretched, her curly black locks dancing around her head.

Harry felt his legs go weak and dropped to his knees. The child threw herself on his neck.

"Daddyyyyy! You're here! I've so missed you!" she gibbered, snuggling her rosy face into Harry's messy hair.

For a moment Harry was hesitating, not knowing how to react, but as Daphne's arms wound around his neck and she gave him a smacking, wet kiss on the cheek like she had always done in her short life, he instinctively pulled her to himself, holding her tightly yet gently, exactly like he had used to…

"Daddy, don't ever leave me again!" Daffy cooed into his left ear. "Promise me that you won't!"

"Harry?"

He looked up to see Ginny standing next to them with a questioning expression. "Harry, you know this isn't real, don't you? "

"I…" he began insecurely.

"Harry," Ginny crouched down next to them. "This _isn't_ real. They aren't really your mother, father, godfather and daughter…"

"Wasn't the Chimera real?" whispered Harry, feeling more and more confused by the second. "Wasn't the Cyclops real? And the Sirens? Scylla? Charybdis? Were they all figments of our imagination?"

"Perhaps not… perhaps yes," she replied. "We don't know what would have happened if the Chimera had eaten us… perhaps it would have vanished in a puff of smoke when it swallowed us, and we would have fallen onto the ground, intact. We also don't know what would have happened if the whirlpool had sucked the ship in. Perhaps it also would have landed us in Aesulapius' room, just in another way… They might have all been real… but they all might have been just illusions, Harry."

"Then the ache in my back must have been a pretty convincing illusion," remarked Harry with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"See, girl? We're all real," spoke up Lily. "We're real, and we're Harry's family, while you aren't part of it yet…"

Harry pursed his lips, sizing up his mother contemplatively. Ginny saw the doubt in his eyes - she saw he couldn't decide whom to believe, for both parties who were trying to convince him meant a lot to him.

"Ginny," he heaved a huge sigh. "Tell me: an hour ago, in the pool… did we really make love, or was that also just an illusion?"

"Of course that was real," she replied, blushing, aware that Harry's parents were listening.

"Hey, Harry, you little tyke!" said Sirius, chuckling.

"I told you he was a heartthrob like his father." James grinned.

"Harry," Ginny continued, pretending to not have heard the two Marauders' snide comments, "we have to go."

"You're not taking my daddy away from me!" shouted little Daphne, scowling both at Ginny and her father. This was the expression that had always melted Harry's heart, and it threatened to melt it again…

_Come to your senses, Harry!_ a voice screamed inside the young wizard's head. _Ginny's right, this isn't real! Your real parents wouldn't want to distract you from helping your love! Your mother and father gave their lives to help you, they know better than anything what it's like to want to help someone so badly that you'd do anything to help them… and Sirius - hadn't he lived off rats and slept in cold caves just to be near you and help you when needed? Hadn't he run off to the Department of Mysteries to save your sorry ass from Voldemort's trap? He'd also understand that you want to save your love more than anything! _

"You're right, Ginny," he said, standing up. "This isn't real. My real family wouldn't be selfish enough to hold me back from helping you. This isn't my real family."

"But… Harry…" Lily held out her hands pleadingly. "Harry… how can you just disown us?"

"I'm deeply disappointed in you," said Sirius.

"You're no longer my son," grunted James.

"Daddyyyy! Don't go!" sobbed Daphne.

"You were right all along, Gin," said Harry, taking her hand into his. "None of them is real. Come, let's find The Fates, shall we?"

She nodded and they set off again. They had barely taken two steps when they heard a series of puffs. They turned around and saw that James, Lily and Sirius had disappeared, and Daphne's figure was also fading.

"Well done, Harry Potter," she said and vanished totally.

"What were these things?" Harry asked Ginny.

"Illusions, perhaps." She shrugged.

"I owe you one. Had you not persuaded me, I would have fallen into their trap."

"I know," she smiled. "It seems I keep saving you here in the Row of Gods."

He made a grimace. "Yeah… my superhero image has been shattered."

She suppressed a chuckle. "My heart's bleeding for you."

"You're teasing me again!"

"I can't help it, it's fun."

"Do you realise that we might spend the rest of our lives teasing each other?"

"I wouldn't mind, as long as you don't sexually tease me," she replied with an impish grin. "I don't think I could bear it…"

"I'm not the type to tease a woman and then not satisfy her." He grinned back at her smugly.

"Glad to hear."

"Come here," he whispered.

"What do you have in mind?" She cocked her head.

"Nothing devious, just a tiny little kiss from my fiancée…"

"I can't find a reason to object." Ginny licked her lips and slid her arms around his neck.

However, the kiss never took place, because a giggle interrupted them.

They looked to the right to see a scantily clad woman whose pink, almost see-through dress and wavy blonde hair was billowing in a nonexistent wind. She was pressing her hands over her lips to suppress her chuckle, her sky blue eyes glinting jovially.

"Who are you and what's so funny?" questioned Ginny.

"Guess who I am," she replied, tossing her blonde locks out of her face in a seductive manner.

"Fleur Delacour's second cousin?" said Harry with a smirk. He, of course had a very good idea who the woman might be.

"Honestly," huffed the woman-wearing-almost-nothing. "I'm Aphrodite, goddess of love."

"I wouldn't have guessed in a million years," Harry replied innocently.

"Anyway." Aphrodite waved. "I was laughing because I was so satisfied with myself."

"Satisfied with yourself?" Ginny blinked.

"Yeah." The goddess nodded. "The idea of this little deception came from me."

"You?"

"Of course me! Hades is the most unimaginative bloke you could think of, how would he have been able to make up an obstacle based on love? If it hadn't been for me, Elysium would still look just as dark and boring as Tartarus! But I persuaded Hadie to hire me as an interior decorator. So, in fact, this task should be called Aphrodite's task, not Hades' task…" The goddess pouted. "Hades always takes all the credit for _my_ work! It's so damn unfair! But now I've come to tell you that it was _me_ who invented this fabulous task, not my stupid uncle! I really don't understand why Persephone didn't leave him long ago, I would die of boredom if my husband was anything like Uncle Hadie! Tell me that you liked my idea for the task, please! Everyone says I'm just a stupid blondie, but I'm not! Tell me I'm not!"

Harry and Ginny looked at each other, suppressing a grin.

"Of course you're not… it was a very nice idea for a task, Dite," said Harry politely, madly struggling with his facial muscles to keep his face indifferent. "It was so good that it almost managed to deceive me."

"Wonderful!" The goddess clasped her hands delightedly. "You have no idea how happy you made me! Now I'm off to Hadie to tell him that someone finally liked my idea! Oh, almost forgot!" She pointed her index finger at the thin air where a door appeared. "Here, you've completed the task, you may now meet The Fates. Well done!"

With that she was off, only a puff of pink smoke indicated that she had been there.

"She has a bit of a thirst for acceptance, don't you think?" remarked Harry.

"Yeah, she does. The Greek goddesses all seem to have some sort of a complex." Ginny smirked. "Hera has this complex about not being pretty enough and her husband always cheating on her, Aphrodite has this complex that everyone thinks she's _blonde_…"

"But at least Dite doesn't have peacock feathers sticking out of her head…"

"What do you have against peacock feathers?"

"They just look silly. I can really understand Zeus that he didn't want Hera with all her peacock feathers."

"Are you sure this isn't a complex of yours? Weren't you just jealous of Gilderoy Lockhart's fabulous peacock feather quill?"

"The day when I get jealous of Lockhart will be the day when hell freezes over," he replied and opened the door for Ginny.

She stepped through it, followed by Harry.

They got into a room whose rocky walls were covered with moss, giving the room a rather gloomy sort of air. At the middle of the room stood three women: The Fates.

Clotho spun the threads of life, Lachesis measured them, and Atropos cut them.

The three goddesses were so deeply immersed in their work that they didn't even notice the couple entering.

The room was silent, all that could be heard was the clicking of Atropos' scissors as she cut the threads of people's lives.

Ginny swallowed the lump in her throat - she was inadvertently reminded of the terrible fate awaiting her father if she didn't succeed in freeing him now.

Harry cleared his throat.

The Fates shuddered at the voice and Atropos - the youngest of all of them - dropped her scissors in fright.

"Are you out of your minds?" the wizened, wrinkled Clotho snapped. "Scaring us like that?"

"Er, I'm sorry, ladies, but we had to make you aware of our presence somehow," apologised Harry.

"What do you want?" demanded Lachesis.

"We are here to ask for your help," said the young wizard.

"We never receive clients in person," answered Clotho. "At least we haven't had done so for over a thousand years. Just do like all the others who want us to cut someone's thread: write us a letter, that we of course will never read, because we aren't the types who can be blackmailed or bribed into doing anything like that. So leave, please."

"We haven't fought our way through the Row of Gods to leave now! We haven't battled monsters and solved stupid riddles for nothing!" Ginny stamped her foot. "You've got to listen to us! Please!"

Atropos regarded her with a compassionate expression - she looked about Ginny's age, although she must have been thousands of years old. Still, it must have been hard for her to live with a maiden's face and cut threads at the same time… it was a job rather suitable for Clotho, yet it was the youngest one's task.

Atropos gave Ginny a gentle smile. "Speak, we'll listen."

Ginny looked at Harry. "It'd better if you told them."

"Yeah." He nodded and turned back to The Fates. "Ginny here has a serious problem, ladies. Her father has been cursed by The Fates Charm."

Clotho's eyes narrowed and she stopped spinning the thread, Lachesis' mouth opened and she forgot to shut it, while Atropos clutched at her heart with a yelp and dropped her scissors again. "That… that can't be true!"

"Unfortunately it _is_ true," replied Harry.

"But… but that charm hasn't been used for at least a millennium!" protested Lachesis. "You know, a millennium ago we decided that we'd had enough of people playing judges themselves and sentencing each other to death with the Fates Charm… judging is the task of the gods, no that of people. So we saw to it that all scripts about this curse are destroyed… We _thought_ that all records have been destroyed!"

"It seems they haven't," whispered Ginny. "My father has been cursed by it, and my husband is blackmailing me with this, he's using this to keep me under his control, but… but I want to be free at last!" Although she had whispered the beginning of the sentence, at the end of it she was almost shouting, tears brimming her eyes. "You're my only hope, please, say you can free me!"

The three goddesses exchanged meaningful glances, then Clotho spoke up: "When exactly did your father become cursed, dear?"

"My husband said that it had happened exactly a week before our wedding… that has to be 20th June, 1998," Ginny said.

"Well, my child, you have to know that we haven't done something like freeing someone from The Fates Charm for ages… but we believe you have suffered enough in your life, and also struggled through the tasks of the Row of Gods, to deserve our mercy. However, freeing someone from this curse is a hard task, and we haven't had to do it for over a millennium, so we have forgotten how exactly it works. First we have to look it up in our personal journals, and finding entries we wrote over a thousand years ago will take some time," said Atropos. "Also, as far as I remember, freeing people from this curse isn't a quick process… I'm sorry but we cannot perform the liberation ceremony right here and now… Anniversaries are always special dates - I believe the freeing ritual can be performed by the anniversary of your father's cursing, and then, on the 20th of June, next year, you will be free."

"But there's ten months until then!" Ginny breathed. She'd have to wait almost a whole year till next June.

"We are sorry, but this is all we can do for you," said Lachesis. "Have faith, child, and hold out, it's less than a year and both your father and you will be free. We promise you that."

Ginny opened her mouth to protest, but Harry shook his head. "It's nice of them to do it at all, they could easily have turned us down."

"But Harry… how can I live together with Draco for another ten months… after all that's happened between us? How?"

"Think of the happy time we spent together in these four days, Ginny. Think of it, and you'll get strength from the memories. Then think of the future: think of us being together from next June - together, always, and only death can part us."

Ginny hugged him tightly, with all her love, and as she looked over his shoulder, she saw Atropos grin at her and give her the thumbs-up. She chuckled into Harry's neck - this Atropos was a nice girl, pity that she had to do such a nasty job.

"Just one more question." Harry turned to The Fates again. "How are we going to get back? Will we have to go through the obstacles of the Row of Gods again? Will we have to fight our way back again?"

"Oh, nooo," Atropos giggled. "When you came through the different rooms of the Row of Gods, you made the way free for about a day. If you begin your journey back right now, you'll get back to the entrance without any difficulty. No monsters or whatsoever."

"No monsters, okay, but how will we get back from Aesculapius' chamber to Athena's? There's a damn big sea there, and in order to get back on to the sea, we would have to climb that enormous waterfall…" Harry reasoned.

"My dears, the Row of Gods is a magical place. If you have once fought your way through its obstacles, it will show you the way back as a reward. I can assure you that you won't have any problem getting back to the entrance of the Row," replied Clotho benignly.

"Right, then, thank you for your help, ladies." Harry slightly bent his head.

"Yes. Thank you," added Ginny, looking crestfallen. She couldn't imagine almost a year spent with Draco while she knew her thoughts would be with Harry every second of that year… she didn't dare imagine how Draco would treat her now - somehow he might have got to know that she left with Harry, and if he got to know, there'd be hell to pay…

She heaved a deep sigh, said farewell to The Fates and let Harry guide her out of chamber whose door closed behind their backs.

"Don't be sad, Ginny," her lover said quietly, putting an arm around her shoulder. "I don't want to see you sad…"

"I'd like to smile, Harry, but I simply can't. At the mere thought of having to endure my husband for another year, I-"

He placed his index finger on her lips, silencing her. "Don't. I don't want you to think of Malfoy now. Just think of what we shared in the pond… See, you're smiling again."

She was indeed smiling. "How could I not smile when I think of that?"

* * *

As they reached the River Styx, they found Charon standing on the bank, waiting for them.

"Hm, The Fates must've been right when saying that the Row of Gods will help us on our way back," said Harry as the boatman bowed to Ginny and blushed furiously.

Cerberus, the three-headed dog made way for them, not looking a bit murderous this time.

When they took place in the boat, Charon began to sing something in Italian, never taking his eyes off Ginny.

"Tell me, is he gone mad, or does he think he's a gondolier on the Canal Grande?" whispered Ginny to Harry.

"He's just madly in love with you, honey," he whispered back, trying to hold back his laughter. "By the way, Gin, I know there's not much chance for your husband getting to know about our little journey here, but in case he does, then be sure to tell him that our mission didn't succeed."

"Why?" She frowned, finding it hard to concentrate on Harry when _O Sole Mio_ sung by Charon suppressed all other noises, even the splashing of water.

"Because if ever he gets to know that you'll be free in less than a year, then he might think up something new to chain you to himself - something that we'll never be able to get rid of, a curse that we might not be able to break… so just tell him that we didn't manage to convince The Fates."

"Right." She nodded. "I'll lie to him. But I seriously hope that he'll never find out about this journey of ours…"

In a couple of minutes they reached the opposite bank and Charon got out, holding out his bony hand for Ginny to help her gallantly out of the boat. As usual, he ignored Harry.

"Thank you very much, Mr Charon." The young witch smiled at him.

"My pleasure, milady. I hope to see you soon again."

"Don't I have to be dead to meet you again?" She raised an eyebrow while Harry took her hand.

"Well, yes, but-"

The boatman never managed to finish his sentence, for all of a sudden two figures appeared out of the mist.

"So!" said one of them in a gruff voice.

"D… Draco?" gasped Ginny.

"Phaedra?" breathed Harry.

"Bingo, Harry, dear," the woman said with her arms akimbo.

"I demand an explanation," growled Malfoy, his usually pale face red with fury at the sight of his wife holding hands with Harry.

"I don't owe you any sort of explanation, Draco," replied Ginny.

"Oh, but of course you do," drawled the blond wizard. "You left Malfoy Manor to go frolicking with Potter and to get freed from my curse. Didn't you?"

"What if I did?" she spat haughtily. "It's none of your business!"

"As long as you go by my name, it _is_ my business!"

"Exactly. I would also like to hear the story, darling," hissed Phaedra, putting the emphasis on the 'darling' part, while looking at Harry with a dark expression.

"I don't owe you any explanation, Phaedra. I told you to stop tailing me, I told you it was all over!" said Harry passionately. "I quit your ruddy Circle and I quit our relationship, too."

"You can't quit our relationship as long as I'm legally married to you!" The Greek witch stamped her foot.

"Right!" shouted Harry. "You'll get the divorce papers within a week!"

"Oh! Don't you think you can get rid of me that easily, Harry Potter!" Phaedra barked. "Just because I let you cheat on me with this little trollop here, I won't let you get rid of me to marry her, _understood_?"

"Hey, that's my wife you're calling a trollop!" Draco pointed out.

"Why, isn't she one?" Phaedra crossed her arms.

"No, she isn't," Harry growled through gritted teeth.

"Of course she isn't," interjected Charon.

"No one asked you!" all the four of them yelled at him.

"So, Potter, what have you done to my wife?" Draco stepped forward menacingly, jabbing his index finger at Harry's chest.

"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" Harry smirked at him, enjoying the state of insecurity Draco must have been in, not knowing whether he had been cuckolded or not…

"Tell me, Potter!" hissed Malfoy, his nose almost touching Harry's, his icy grey eyes blazing with fury, boring into Harry's malicious green ones.

For a moment Harry truly felt triumph over Draco; he could ruin the blond man's self-esteem by a single sentence of three words: 'I've shagged her' However, he was sure he'd only cause Ginny more trouble if he told Malfoy that he should face that cold truth: he'd become a deceived husband. He cast a sideways glance at Ginny, who was staring at them, chewing her lower lip, her beautiful brown eyes full of anxiety.

No. He didn't have the right to make her situation even worse for the remaining ten months. He knew they couldn't do anything for almost a year, he knew he had to let Ginny go back to her husband till the 20th June 2004, he knew how hard it'd be for her to live with Malfoy again after all that had happened… yet Harry knew that if he gloated to Malfoy about his successful seduction of Ginny, he'd make her life with Draco a living hell. Not that her life hadn't been a hell before, but if possible, it'd be only even more terrible.

"We haven't done anything, if that's what you want to know," he said heavily.

"You haven't…?" Draco arched an eyebrow at him, but stepped back slightly.

"No, we haven't," Harry replied calmly.

"What about the curse? Have you lifted it?" enquired Draco.

"No, we didn't manage to talk the Fates into lifting it." Ginny shook her head.

"Oh, isn't it a pity?" Malfoy smirked at Phaedra. "They've come this far, fought their way through this place, making our way into here free of obstacles, and they haven't managed to fight off the curse!" He let out a shrill laugh. "I'm so sorry for you, both of you, really!"

Harry and Ginny exchanged a wistful smile. They'd have to be patient. Just another ten months, and they'll belong to each other, forever… No matter what they had to go through until then, no matter how much Draco would be bullying Ginny, no matter how hard Phaedra would try to get Harry back - they'd be together. They just had to wait.

"So, what happens now?" the Greek witch asked.

"What would happen now?" Ginny shrugged. "I'll go back with my husband, and you can join yours."

"If you are interested in my opinion, this blond bloke doesn't deserve you," Charon chimed in, pointing at Draco.

"Shut up!"

"Okay, okay," the boatman huffed. "I was just trying to draw your attention to the fact that a gentleman shouldn't treat his wife like that. But if you're not interested… then perhaps those ten gentlemen over there would love to hear my opinion."

"Ten gentlemen?" Draco blinked, turning around.

"Oh, shit," Harry whispered.

Ten Aurors appeared out of the mist, advancing on them with their wands drawn, all pointed at Harry.

"How did they get here?" breathed Draco.

"Malfoy, you idiot," snapped Phaedra. "They must have put a bug charm on you while you were playing chess with them!"

"Why on me?" countered Draco. "They might as well have put it on you!"

"That's out of the question, all members of the Circle have anti-bug-charm fields!"

"What?" asked Draco, but he didn't really expect an answer, for a flash of light crossed the air in front of his eyes.

"You won't get away this time, Dursley!" growled one of the Aurors, sending Stunners at the four of them.

Harry jerked Ginny out of the way of the Stunner, while Phaedra sent another Stunner at the group of Aurors.

"What now?" Draco ducked.

"Fight, Malfoy," replied Harry.

"On _your_ side?"

"If you brought them upon us, then yes, on _our_ side!" snapped Phaedra, her voice peremptory.

"Are you out of your mind, woman? I don't want to end up in the Labyrinth!" shouted Draco, and deflected a jinx aimed at Ginny.

In no time the duel was in full swing, the air filled with smoke and flashes of hexes. Harry, Ginny, Phaedra and Draco were forced to retreat to the bank of the river by the Auror's attack. Although Harry and Phaedra were good enough duellers to fight three enemies at once, Draco and Ginny didn't have enough training to take on two men at the same time. They were outnumbered, and no matter how hard they tried, there wasn't much of a chance to escape from here - where would they escape to, anyway? Not into the Styx, that's for sure…

Harry had tried the Time Freezing charm at the very beginning of the fight, but to his greatest surprise it didn't work. He put it down to the fact that he had spent over an hour in the underworld now and it had sucked most of his powers out of him, just like it had in Ginny's case. He felt his legs filled with lead and it became harder and harder to breath…

Certainly Draco, Phaedra and the Aurors didn't have this problem, or at least surely not to the same extent as Harry and Ginny, for they hadn't spent nearly as much time here as they had.

The Aurors were breaking their way through all obstacles conjured by the four, pressing towards them like ten enormous rhinos, and soon enough Harry found himself using his fist just as frequently as his wand to try and hold off the too enthusiastic Greek wizarding policemen. Whenever an Auror came close to Charon, the boatman slapped him hard on the head with his oars, but otherwise he kept out of the scrap.

Draco had to admit to himself that he wasn't sure why he was fighting against the Aurors at all… If they caught him, he'd really land up in the Greek wizarding prison, the infamous Labyrinth, and it crossed his mind that not even saving his wife from this stupid scrap was worth getting a life sentence for complicity, for helping Ginny would mean that he was helping Potter as well, and Potter, for the time being, was wanted for murder by the Greek Magical Law Enforcement. Well, Draco definitely didn't feel like getting convicted because of Potter, and the idea of helping Potter with anything sounded ridiculous even inside his head.

Ginny, with the last remaining pieces of her strength, presented a nearby Auror with her Bat Bogey Hex, before she got her wand ripped out of her hand, and a curse sent into her direction.

Harry, who had been occupied with three other Aurors at once but had been keeping an eye on his lover, saw that she had been disarmed and was likely to be cursed. With a sweep of his wand he created a whirlwind to push his three opponents back and hurtled forward to yank her out of the way of the curse… this two seconds of lapse in his attention had been enough for a watchful Auror to get him in the chest with the white streak of a hex.

He saw darkness fall around him, he could no longer hear the noise of the battle, nor see anything of it - he stumbled a few steps backwards, tripped over a rock and fell with a loud splash into the River Styx.

"HARRYYYYYYY!" screamed Ginny and Phaedra at the same second.

Without lowering his wand, Draco stopped in his stride and gaped at the churning water where Potter had submerged.

The Aurors ceased fire and gathered to the shore.

Ginny dropped to her knees on the bank, her eyes scanning the murky water beneath, waiting for him to resurface… he had spent a whole minute underwater when she had been sitting under the beach umbrella… surely he'd swim to the surface again and laugh at the Aurors… or perhaps he'd swum to the opposite bank to escape… Ginny strained her eyes to see the shore on the other side of the river, but nothing moved there, except a fuzzy dot that was Cerberus.

Surely Harry was just making fun, trying to make them think he'd drowned… he couldn't have drowned for real… could he?

She had no idea how long she had knelt there, gazing at the water. The only sound she could hear was Phaedra's hysteric sobs to her left. Why was Phaedra crying? - she wondered. Harry'd come to the surface any time now. Really, just a little more, just a few seconds and his shaggy black mop of hair would appear among the waves…

_Come on, Harry, stop playing, I know you just want to scare us, but I'm not deceived by the same ruse twice a day!_

"Come on, Harry…" Ginny whispered without realising that she had opened her mouth at all.

Suddenly she felt two hands around her shoulders.

"It's over," a grumpy voice said, but this time it sounded full of emotions.

She turned slightly to the right to look at Charon's pale face. The otherwise frightening boatman now looked like a sad puppy, his huge black eyes filled with compassion.

"No." Ginny shook her head. "He'd come to the surface. I know. I've seen him doing such a thing already. He'll come."

"Milady - it's been seven minutes since he disappeared into the Styx," replied Charon quietly. "No man can live without oxygen for such a long time."

"But… but… this is just an illusion!" Ginny protested. "This whole place isn't even real! This isn't even the real Styx! You aren't even the real Charon!"

"I'm afraid I'm very much real, milady," the boatman whispered. "So is the Styx. Everything's real in the Row of Gods, save for the spirits that try to deceive anyone who ventures into the underworld part of the Row."

"No. No, you must be mistaken," Ginny croaked. "This is all just an illusion, and illusions can't kill anyone… Harry will come back."

"Face reality," Phaedra hissed from her left. Ginny squinted at the other woman to see her beautiful features contorted with pain. "Face it, you bitch. You brought Harry here, and this place killed him. You are to blame. _Only you_…"

"No…" Ginny stared at the water again. This can't be true… this must be just a nightmare. Yes, a nightmare, nothing else… She'd wake up next morning in her soft bed in the Burrow and find out that Harry had never returned to England, she had never visited him at 12 Grimmauld Place, and the Row of Gods never existed…

She just gazed at the river that kept flowing peacefully, as though not feeling even slightly guilty for having swallowed Harry. She felt Charon's hands leave her shoulders while a bigger, firmer pair of hands caught her and slowly pulled her off the ground. She barely noticed the Aurors putting manacles on her wrists, nor did she realise that Phaedra and Draco had already been shackled. She didn't notice when two Aurors gripped her arms and started steering her away from the river - she looked over her shoulder, never taking her eyes off the water… She was still staring in the direction of the Styx when it had long merged into the darkness.


	16. Down with Gravity!

**Author's note in May, 2005:** this chapter, as many others in many of my fics has been reuploaded since it had lyrics in it that I had to delete (and I didn't trust ffnet's quick-edit).

**

Chapter 16

**

Down with gravity!

Cedric Diggory was wondering why Queen Persephone had sent for him. He had been at the middle of a Quidditch training session when a messenger came to the pitch and told him that the queen wanted to see him in person.

What could be this important? And why would the queen want to talk to him? He had barely seen her in his whole life - correction: his life after death - so he had absolutely no idea what she could want from him.

"Don't be long, Ced!" shouted Godric Gryffindor from the pitch.

"I won't Captain!" Cedric waved back, knowing what Gryffindor desired the most was to win a match against Tartarus at last. Elysium hadn't won a single match for two hundred and forty-six years now. The members of the Elysium team had been resigning after a couple of unsuccessful years, so the composition of the team had been constantly changing, while the team of Tartarus, under the leadership of Captain Cesare Borgia, hadn't changed since Grindelwald joined in 1945…

Cedric propped his _StyxSweeper 2003_ broom on his shoulder and started climbing the steps leading towards the palace of the Underworld that stood on a small hill, its front door lined with elaborately carved skulls.

* * *

"Listen to this, Hadie," said Persephone, sitting crosswise in a cushioned armchair that served as the queen's throne. Her head was propped on one of the chair's armrests, her legs lolling over the other armrest. She was sucking some sort of a pink, skull-shaped lollipop, deeply immersed in reading _The Quibbler_. Her position was as un-royal as possible, but it didn't seem to bother her husband, who was sitting on his throne next to her chair, his face half-hidden in his palms, his expression radiating utter boredom.

"What have you found now?" He sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Listen." Persephone slightly straightened her back to show the importance of what she was about to read out. "_Famous celebrity Celestina Warbeck has been caught madly snogging with none other than Michael Jackson in an infamous bar called The Blue Oyster in New York. Goblins, disguised as men in black leather thongs were hired to continue tailing the enamoured singing sensations…"_ The Queen of the Underworld squinted at her husband to see that his eyes were closed. "Are you listening?" She nudged him. With a snore-like snort Hades shuddered and opened his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm listening. But honestly, Persy, why do you believe all the rubbish that _The Quibbler_ writes?"

"Should I rather read the _Financial Times_? That's boring!" she snapped, as a young man with dark brown hair and a broom on his shoulder entered the room. She immediately dropped her newspaper and her expression changed from furious-at-Hades into a serene, compassionate one.

The young man stopped at the door. Noticing him, Persephone pulled her legs off her chair's armrest to sit as regally as possible. Seeing the young man's hesitation, she beckoned him closer with a gentle smile. "Come, come my dear, don't be afraid."

"I'm not afraid, Your Highness," replied Cedric. "I'm just surprised that you asked me to join you for a discussion. I'm curious to know what it is all about."

Persephone and Hades exchanged a meaningful look, then Hades spoke up:

"As you know, young Diggory, we here in the Underworld have no clue to what is going on up in the world of the living - all we get to know comes from the newspapers that my dear mother-in-law Demeter keeps sending us through the Styx-post."

Indeed, Demeter had been providing her daughter with information of the world above through newspapers that she kept dropping into the Styx at its source, i.e. the source of the Styx was on the surface of Earth, it just dived beneath the surface again after a short stretch. Demeter had wanted to make sure that her daughter was well informed about the events of the world above, so that when she left the underworld to spend half the year with her mother, she'd be aware of what had happened in her half-year long sojourn in the underworld. Sometimes the inhabitants of the underworld got to know about the happenings of the world above from Persephone's newspapers, but that being the only source of information, they were mostly unaware of what was going on in the world of the living.

"Yes, Your Majesty, I am aware of it." Cedric nodded and jumped aside because a huge stack of newspapers fell through the ceiling, right where he had been standing a second earlier. The newspapers were bound together with a sticking charm and he saw that the one on the top was called The Guardian. "I'm just curious to know what it has to do with me."

"Well," the queen hesitated for a second, her eyes full of sympathy. Then she slid off her throne and started rummaging through a pile of magazines she had dropped to the floor after having read them through. "Ah, here it is." She pulled the _Daily Prophet_ out from under _Le Monde_ and _Der Spiegel_, handing it to Cedric. "Page fifteen. And I'm truly, deeply sorry."

Cedric took the newspaper with slightly trembling hands, fearing that something terrible would be in there.

The headline on page fifteen read:

HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED STRIKES AGAIN

_This time not in Eurodisney, but in Great Stoatshead_

Cedric gulped and read on.

_It seems that after his five years of hiding and licking the wounds given to him by the Boy Who Lived (to whom we rather refer nowadays as the Boy Who Has Gone Missing), He Who Must Not Be Named seems to have returned to full power. We can only guess what he has been doing over the last five years, why he was hiding, but very likely we will never properly find out.  
He has lost most of his Death Eaters - we would have said, but less than a week ago he struck in Disneyland Paris, with a group of at least fifteen dark wizards. This means he must have found a way to recruit new followers. The number of casualties of the Disneyland attack is approximately 150 people, over thirty of them dead.  
After an attack of such magnitude, we were fearful that next time You-Know-Who would strike in a packed shopping mall or in Diagon Alley, but instead, he has chosen a smaller target: Amos Diggory of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and his wife Coré Papafotiu Diggory.  
We might wonder why the Dark Lord chose this innocent couple, whose only son he had already murdered. The Auror squad led by Nymphadora Tonks arrived at the scene shortly after the attack to find the Diggorys' home devastated, Amos and Coré tortured to such an extent that they weren't able to speak or even recognise the Aurors.  
They were immediately transported to St Mungo's in the hope of providing them with rapid treatment. However, the damage seems permanent, and the Diggorys are likely to be sent into the Spell Damage department of the wizarding hospital and remain there for the rest of their lives.  
After a thorough investigation, it turns out that He Who Must Not Be Named and his servants must have been looking for something in the couple's home, for all filing cabinets were pried open, their contents scattered all over the house.  
Auror Tonks found a photo album lying on the floor, several photos missing. To add an intriguing detail to the story, the photo album, from which pictures had obviously been stolen, contained thirty-year-old photos of Coré Diggory (then Coré Papafotiu, whom Amos first met on an international wizarding conference, in which Coré represented her homeland, Greece).  
So far Magical Law Enforcement hasn't managed to solve the riddle as to why You-Know-Who would need photos of Mrs Diggory's childhood family…_

The article continued with the journalist's lamenting over the Diggorys' terrible condition and blaming Magical Law Enforcement for their constant blundering.

His face as white as a sheet, Cedric glanced up at Hades and Persephone.

"I'm very, very sorry…" said the queen, her huge dark blue eyes brimming with tears.

"I'm sorry about your parents, and also that you had to get to know about it like this," added the king of the underworld solemnly.

"I wish we could help you somehow…" The queen sighed.

"But you could," replied Cedric resolutely.

"How?" Hades arched an eyebrow at him.

"I've heard that on certain occasions, you let some of the dead leave the netherworld to join their loved ones in the world of the living… when those people were going through a really distressing time and they needed support. I've heard you let Caesar's soul join Cleopatra's when she needed support against Octavian and she never got to know that it had been her late lover's spirit helping her, giving her the heart to carry on. I'd like to do as Caesar did. I'd like to go up and be beside my parents. They won't know I'm there, but they'll sense me somehow in their subconscious, and perhaps… perhaps I'll be able to help them, heal them…"

The king of the underworld gave the young man an appraising look. "I haven't given anyone my consent to leave my world for centuries…"

"Couldn't you make an exception this time, Hadie dear?" asked his wife, gently squeezing his hand.

"I don't know, Persy…" Hades shook his head. "I'd love to help the Diggorys by letting their son rejoin them for a while, but who'd play Seeker for Elysium then?"

"Oh, don't be such an insensitive wart!" snapped the queen. "How can that stupid game be more important for you than the well-being of two people? I'm deeply disappointed in you, Hades!"

"Don't call me Hades!" said the king of the netherworld, pouting.

"But that's your name, isn't it?" Persephone grunted and looked away.

"You know I hate it when you call me that! For you I'm Hadie!"

If his heart hadn't been full of worry for his parents, Cedric would have been thoroughly amused by the couple's bickering.

"As long as you don't let this young man help his parents, you're just Hades for me!" said the queen defiantly.

The king of the underworld sent Cedric an 'I-can't-believe-this' stare. "Sorry, boy, but we can't let Tartarus win again, can we? I can't let you go until you find someone to play Seeker instead of you. Could you perhaps appoint another Seeker for your team?"

"I'm afraid not, sir." The young man shook his head. "You know how dirty Tartarus is playing, there's not a single soul in Elysium who'd volunteer for the position - at least none that I know of…"

Hades scratched his jaw, looking thoughtful. "Well, perhaps…"

But no one ever got to know what he had wanted to say, for at that second the limp body of a man fell through the ceiling.

The man fell face down on the floor, clutching a wand in his hand. He had obviously come through the Styx, for everything that fell through the ceiling always came from the river - sometimes even Muggle garbage, which was very annoying for the cleaners of the king's palace.

Although the man must have fallen into the river, now he was absolutely dry, because the ceiling of Hades' palace had a drying charm on it so that the newspapers dropped into the river by Demeter wouldn't land dripping wet on Persephone's lap.

"Is he dead?" worried the queen and crouched down next to the limp body.

"Of course he's dead, honey, who else would be coming to the underworld?" Hades rolled his eyes.

Suddenly the man on the floor stirred and rolled onto this back. "I hate gravity. And Aurors," he whispered, his eyes still closed. "Why did I ever want to be one of them?"

"What is he saying?" asked Persephone. "He seems to be raving."

Before her husband could reply, Cedric shouted, "It's Harry!"

"Who?"

"Harry Potter. My one-time fellow student at Hogwarts," said young Diggory. "Damn it, Harry, why did you also have to die?"

Harry opened his eyes, blinked to clear his vision and turned slightly in Cedric's direction. "Dead? No, I'm not dead… at least I don't think so. By the way, hi, Ced." Suddenly he sat bolt upright. "Tell me, are you the real Cedric, or just another illusion trying to deceive me?"

"What the heck are you talking about?" Young Diggory furrowed his brow.

"I just… the Row of Gods… Aurors came… I fell into the river, then… bugger, what if the Aurors caught Ginny? And Phaedra? And Malfoy? Hah, I'm going mad, Cedric, I actually feel worried about Malfoy."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, Harry," replied Cedric, kneeling down next to him, "But… _you're really alive!_"

"'Course I am, haven't I said so yet?" grunted Harry, looking around. "Who're they?" He pointed at the rulers of the netherworld.

"He's Hadie," the queen introduced her husband with a gentle smile.

"And she's Persy," added her husband, pointing at her.

"Percy?" Harry blinked. "I must have hit my head very badly. Percy as in Percival?"

"As in Persephone!" The queen corrected him. "It's an 's' in Persy, not a 'c'. But really…" she leant closer to Harry to look into his eyes. "It's amazing!"

"What?" The young wizard frowned.

"That you're alive!"

"Why is that so amazing?" Harry shrugged. "I fell into the Styx in the Row of Gods, but I was very much alive there, so why wouldn't I be alive here?"

"Because this is the underworld," declared Hades.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, there's a Hades' room in the Row of Gods, this must be part of it." Harry nodded.

"I think you have misunderstood us, young man. This is _the_ Underworld. No room, no illusion, but the real one."

"Wha…?" Harry gaped. "No, no… This must be just a dream… Harry wake up!" He slapped his face as hard as he could. "This can't be true! Tell me you're just joking!"

"We aren't." Persephone shook her head. "You're in the netherworld - alive."

"How can you tell I'm alive…I'm beginning to think I'm actually dead," young Potter said.

"We can see it in your eyes," replied Cedric. "They're alive. They're so different from those of the dead… just look at _my_ eyes. What can you see there?"

Frowning, Harry gazed into his one-time Quidditch opponent's eyes and was taken aback by what he saw there: Cedric's eyes were just as pretty grey as they had ever been, but somehow, they were translucent. The rest of his body seemed totally solid, Harry would have sworn he could touch and feel it if he reached out, but Ced's eyes were simply unearthly. Nothing but his eyes suggested that he wasn't a normal human being.

Harry squinted at Persephone. "Your eyes aren't translucent. You must be alive, too, so why is it such a big deal that I'm here alive?"

"Because I'm a goddess, I'm immortal."

"Did you just say you've been in the Row of Gods?" interjected Hades.

"Yeah, I've been there." Harry nodded. "Had some business with The Fates."

"And you reached them?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Because," said Hades, "then you must be a tough fighter. No one has managed to go through the tasks and live to tell the tale for about a thousand years!"

"That must've been a piece of cake for Harry, eh?" Cedric grinned, for the moment forgetting about the bad news in the _Daily Prophet_. "He won the Triwizard Tournament, too."

"I won it together with you, old boy." Harry grinned back.

"C'mon, don't be so modest!"

"I'm not modest, just… you were still better than me. You reached the cup before me--"

"Only because you saved me from Krum--"

"--and you were better at Quidditch, too…"

"Now that's something I refuse to agree with!" protested young Diggory. "You were a much better Seeker than I ever was, I only won that single match because you got into trouble with the Dementors. To tell you the truth, I've never seen a Seeker as good as you, Harry."

"A moment, please!" Hades cut in. "Did you just say he was a _good Seeker_?"

"Yeah, that's right" Cedric shrugged.

Hades and Persephone looked at each other in a rather peculiar way.

"What?" asked Harry, confused.

"Care to play for Elysium?"

"For _what_?"

* * *

Sitting on a patch of straw, Ginny was gazing at the floor of the cell they were being held in. Draco was pacing the cell irritably, while Phaedra was standing by the bars, looking defiantly outside.

"Where on Earth are they? Haven't they got my owl?" huffed Draco.

"Shut up, Malfoy, will you?" snapped Phaedra, but her voice was no longer as firm and determined as it had been, it was trembling and nervous. "They'll come sooner or later, and you'll be free to go back to your darned England!"

"What do you have against England?"

"Nothing! But my husband died merely hours ago, so I'm a bit beside myself, that's understandable, isn't it?" she shouted, her eyes blazing with fury and pain. "_Isn't it_?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course. I'm sorry," replied Malfoy.

"Sorry? Are you _really_ sorry that Harry died?" Phaedra looked incredulous.

Draco shrugged. "I never liked him, but he deserved a worthier death than drowning in a stupid river."

Ginny didn't hear anything of their bickering, she was just gazing at the floor, her ears not taking in any sound, her mind not interpreting anything… she was in a state of shock, and even tears failed to come. Oh, it would have been a relief to cry, but she simply couldn't. For the moment she didn't even feel the pain Phaedra was so spectacularly suffering from, Harry's death didn't even properly sink in… he had just fallen into the Styx and never resurfaced. However, Ginny didn't identify this with the fact that Harry had died. Her thoughts were hovering somewhere between dream and reality, but didn't belong to either of the two categories, so she couldn't even decide what had truly happened and what had just been a figment of her imagination.

She couldn't even properly remember what had happened to them in the Row of Gods, the last four days with Harry seemed to be a blur, she could no more tell whether she had indeed visited Harry at the old Black house, whether she had let him glimpse her memories, whether they had ever eaten gyros at Nikias', whether Spiro had ever existed, whether they had ever been to Delphi and Atlantis, whether they had indeed made love… Everything was so hazy, so fragmented that Ginny's thoughts and memories resembled the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle… she simply couldn't put the pieces into the right places to form a complete picture, and perhaps she didn't even want to. For the time being she felt okay just gazing at the floor, not trying to think at all.

She didn't even look up when voices spoke from beyond the bars - and rather familiar voices at that.

"Come on," snapped a female voice, "you can't really think that Draco and Virginia Malfoy were indeed accomplices of a murderer!"

"I'm sorry, lady…"

"Don't you dare call me lady, I'm an Auror just like you!" grunted the female voice.

"Oh, sorry, colleague, but we have every reason to believe that they were his accomplices, they were together at a rather shifty place, very possibly having a secret mafia-meeting…"

"Honestly, man, what are you talking about?" said a raspy voice harshly. "Mafia? Are you out of your mind?"

"Yes, they are, if they think that I had anything to do with Po…" began Draco, only to be kicked in the shin by Phaedra. "…Dursley. We had absolutely nothing to do with Dursley. At least not Mrs P… Creevey and me. As for my wife, she got kidnapped by Dursley, she's only a victim. Mrs Creevey and I only went after them to save her from the clutches of that lunatic, so all three of us are innocent."

"You heard him," commented the raspy voice. "So, are you letting them go or should we get in contact with the International Auror Court of Justice?"

"All right, then, Moody, if you vouch for them, you may take them," consented the chief of the Athens Auror team. "But I'm only letting them go because _you_ are vouching for them."

"Great," chimed in the familiar female voice. "Let them out of the cell, then, will you? And give them their wands back."

Ginny heard the door of the cell creak open, and felt someone gently help her off the straw-littered ground. Still dazed, she slowly turned her head in the direction of the person who'd helped her. "Tonks?" she whispered.

"Wotcher, Ginny." The young Auror smiled at her and led her out of the cell.

"What… what are you doing here?" asked Ginny in a shaky voice as they left the building of the Auror headquarters.

"We've come to take you home. Here, dear, take your wand."

Ginny took it without a word.

"Your husband sent us a message that you were being kept prisoner in Athens," Tonks continued, "You know even prisoners have the right to contact their lawyers or relatives or anyone they'd like to. Your husband was clever enough to contact us, and Moody and I came to sort things out. Everything's going to be all right now."

"No, it won't," replied Ginny monotonously, surprised that she could produce any sort of a sound at all. "Nothing will ever be all right. Harry's dead."

"What?" Tonks' dark eyes widened in shock. "You must be joking!"

Ginny smiled bitterly. "If only it were a joke… but I'd never ever joke about something like that, Tonks."

"But… how? Did that Dursley or who kidnap him, too?"

"No Dursley ever kidnapped anyone. Harry went by the name Dursley… the Aurors were after him because he'd killed someone… but he wasn't guilty, he just gave that man what he deserved."

"What? Potter killed someone?" asked Mad-Eye, his huge blue eye swivelling madly in its socket.

"Wasn't his fault," interjected Phaedra. "That bastard tortured our daughter to death. If Harry hadn't killed him, _I_ would have."

They all stared at the Greek witch whose normally tan complexion was ashen now.

"And," she carried on, looking directly into Ginny's eyes, her hands balled into fists, "it's you who killed him. Youuuu…"

"Phaedra, I…"

"You murderer!" shouted Mrs Potter, as though something in her had finally snapped and she lunged at Ginny. Had Alastor not held her back, she would very likely have scratched Ginny's eyes out. "You're his murderer, you damned little bitch!" she panted, trying to throw Moody's firm hands off herself, but they held her in place. "Had you not talked him into coming back to Greece, he would have remained in England and lived a happy life!"

Ginny gave her an appraising look. "_You_ came to England to talk him into rejoining you and the Circle. He would have come back in any case - if not with me, then with you."

"How can you be this… this calm?" hissed Phaedra. "You selfish little tramp, you never loved him, now I can see it!"

"I loved him more than you ever did," whispered Ginny.

"Then cry! Cry like I do! Show that you loved him, for heaven's sake! What sort of a love did you feel for him if you can't even cry over his death?"

"I want to go back to England, Tonks," said Ginny, looking away from the hysterical Phaedra.

"Shall we escort Mrs Potter back to her home?" suggested Mad-Eye.

"No thanks, I can find my way home very well on my own," growled Phaedra, not wanting to disclose the location of the Circle headquarters to anyone.

"I agree with Mr Moody, Phaedra, you need someone to escort you home in your current condition," said Draco.

"Hah, Mr Malfoy is worried about me? How flattering," said the Greek witch in a sarcastic tone. "What are you worried about? That I might go off and commit suicide? Oh, don't be afraid of that, I'm not the type. As for you…" She turned to Ginny again. "I'm more than happy to know that you didn't manage what you wanted here, and that you'll have to live with Malfoy again. That's a big enough punishment for you, Virginia."

Ginny just stared back at the other woman, not even blinking. Seemingly she had sunk back into the same benumbed state she had been in when Tonks and Mad-Eye arrived. At the moment her expression resembled Luna Lovegood's: distant, dreamy, looking like someone who's not all there.

Alastor and Tonks exchanged confused looks, not having the slightest idea what Phaedra was referring to and why it'd be a punishment for Ginny to continue living with her husband.

"Whatever you say, Phaedra, I'm not letting you go home alone," said Draco firmly. Had Ginny not sunken back into her withdrawn condition again, she would have been gaping at him with a 'have you gone mad, Draco?' expression. "Mr Moody, Miss Tonks, I'd be grateful if you escorted my wife back to England while I take care of Mrs Potter here."

"I said I don't need your care, Malfoy! I'm not a little girl anymore, I can take care of myself, thank you very much!" snapped Phaedra.

"I think Mr Malfoy is right, Mrs Potter," commented Tonks, trying to hide her surprise over the fact that Harry had married this woman. She, Tonks, had always thought that Harry would one day marry little Ginny… she had been surprised enough when the news about Ginny and Draco's wedding came out, then the disappearance of Harry Potter Yet, she found it somewhat hard to imagine that Harry could have liked this temperamental, hysterical, Mediterranean chick. Tonks simply couldn't see them making a happy couple… and now she'd never ever see Harry being happy with anyone.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and fought back the tears that wanted to flow down her cheeks. What would Remus say when he got to know about Harry's death? What would the whole wizarding world, especially British wizarding society say? Horror clutched at her heart - what would be _You-Know-Who_'s reaction?

* * *

Sitting under a mahogany tree, Harry was staring at the article in the _Daily Prophet_. His heart ached for the poor Diggorys, but the thing that most shocked him was the maiden name of Mrs Diggory.

"Papafotiu?" He looked up at Cedric with knitted eyebrows.

"Yeah, that's my mum's maiden name." Nodded Cedric. "Why?"

"Because I happen to know certain Papafotius in Athens… Spiro and his sister Leto Papafotiu. Are you related to them by any chance?"

Young Diggory looked thoughtful. "I think so. Mum has once mentioned a cousin of hers, who had two kids by the name Spiro and Leto, but I've never met them."

"What could Voldemort want from a photo album of the Papafotiu family?" wondered Harry, while Cedric slightly shuddered at the name. Seemingly, even the dead could be afraid of the Dark Lord.

"No idea, mate." Cedric shook his head, idly twirling a dandelion between his thumb and index finger. The tree under which they were sitting, stood not far away from Hades' palace, in the picturesque Elysium.

The Underworld was divided into two parts: Elysium and Tartarus. Elysium was the place for the good, while in Tartarus resided those who had lived twisted, evil lives.

Harry had only seen a part of Elysium so far, but had a very good idea of what Tartarus must look like: he imagined it exactly the way Hades' room in the Row of Gods had looked: dark, gloomy and totally devoid of happiness.

Elysium, on the other hand, was a rather pretty place with fresh air, green meadows, colourful flowers, gurgling little creeks and enchanting birdsong. He hadn't seen a lot of it yet, he had just been escorted from the king's palace to this mahogany tree by Cedric where he had been given the newspaper. In the far distance forms were moving, most of them clad in white, pale pink and friendly yellow clothing, as though they had been dancing spring flowers.

"But… the Death Eaters must've been looking for something in that album, don't you think?"

"Oh come on, why would they want photos of my mum's relatives?" Cedric waved. "Seriously, I'm not interested in what they were looking for, all that matters is that my parents have to heal… and I could help them… And Hades doesn't want to let me go because then my team, Elysium won't have a Seeker."

"I understand this, Ced, but you can't expect me to stay here for who knows how long and play Quidditch while Ginny might be incarcerated by those stupid Aurors! I've got to help her, and my wife, too…"

"You're married?" Young Diggory looked surprised.

"Um, yeah."

"Is it Cho?"

"Who?"

"Your wife."

"What? Oh, no!" Harry shook his head with a small smile. "Why did you think that she and I…?"

"I might have been blinded by my love for Cho, but I wasn't _totally_ blind. I saw your infatuation with her."

"Did you?" Harry bit into his lower lip. "Well, no. We went once out in my fifth year at Hogwarts, but… that was all. We simply weren't made for each other…" _And certainly you shouldn't have slept with a woman whom you believed to be Cho, if you knew you two weren't made for each other_, a voice in his head reminded him.

"Did she find someone else?" asked Cedric. Harry gave him a sideways glance to see that he was smiling wistfully. "Is she happy now?"

"Yeah." Harry nodded. "She married a bloke called Michael Corner…"

"I can't recall this Michael…" young Diggory said.

"Don't worry, I also never knew he existed until Ginny turned out to be going out with him," replied Harry with a grimace. "Fortunately, they broke up after only a couple of months of dating. Well, the point is that Michael seems to be a nice chap, and I heard that he and Cho even have a son… named after you."

"Me?" Cedric's eyes widened.

"Yeah." Harry grinned at him.

"Well… I'm happy that she's happy. She deserves to be happy."

_So does Ginny_, thought Harry, _and she's not happy as long as she's with Malfoy… but then again, they'll very likely get out of prison sooner or later, Malfoy's the type to wriggle out of every tight hole, he's done it on several occasions… and if I went back now, I wouldn't be able to help Ginny, she's bound to Draco for another ten months… On the other hand, if I took on playing Seeker, then Cedric could perhaps help his parents…_ Harry stared at the grass in front of him, deep in a dilemma. _But if I don't go back now, then Ginny and everyone else will think I'm dead… oh, God, Ginny'll be broken, and Phaedra, too… and Ron, and Hermione… and Remus… _He ran a hand through his dishevelled jet-black locks. _Aren't I selfish? Isn't it selfish to want to go back just to tell them that I'm alive, while Mr and Mrs Diggory might be shut into the same ward as the Longbottoms for ever? I have made so many wrong decisions, firstly sleeping with the fake Cho, then letting Voldemort blackmail me with Amrita… running away from England and hooking up with Phaedra… then killing that Sicilian… had I been able to control my temper, I could as well have just Stunned him, and then the Aurors wouldn't have come after me, I wouldn't have fallen into this stupid river and I shouldn't be worrying how my friends will take the news about my so called death… it's all my bloody fault, after all! He screwed his eyes shut. I simply can't let Cedric not go and help his parents if there's even a little ray of hope that he could help them… I could have helped so many people, but just brought trouble upon them by making the wrong decision five years ago I can't make a wrong decision again! Ginny and Phaedra will suffer for sure, so will all of my friends, but their suffering will subside as time goes on, while the Diggorys might suffer till the end of their lives if I continue acting the selfish idiot!_

"All right, then." He looked up to meet Cedric's eyes. "You go and help them, and I'll stay and play Quidditch."

Cedric's face lit up, as if a hundred little suns had suddenly illuminated it. Even his slightly translucent eyes were alight with happiness, and looked much less unearthly now.

"How can I ever thank you, Harry?" he beamed.

"You don't need to thank me, I owe the world a sacrifice," replied young Potter.

Under normal circumstances Cedric would surely have asked what sort of sacrifice Harry owed the world, but he was simply too hyper now to care about the subtle meaning behind Harry's words.

"Or… you know what, Ced?"

"What?"

"You could help somehow… you said you could help your parents by being with them, giving them the heart to live and heal… could you visit Ginny for a couple of hours, too? You could just visit her in her sleep and suggest her that I didn't die and that she had to hold out… or something like that?"

"Of course, mate, you can count on me." Cedric nodded, still smiling widely. On their way to the mahogany tree, Harry had quickly filled him in on what had happened to Ginny because of Draco, so Cedric was well-aware how important Ginny was for Harry. "Come, let's go to Hades and tell him the news that you're playing Seeker for a while. Oh, and just a bit of advice: keep your eyes on the players of Tartarus. They tend to play dirtier than the Slytherins… which is funny, because none other than Salazar Slytherin is their Keeper."

"You're kidding," Harry said.

"Am not. Actually Godric Gryffindor is on our team, he's the Captain."

"Wow, are Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff also playing?"

"No, they're just supporting Elysium." Cedric winked at Harry. "Very cheery witches, you'll like them. Oh, and don't be surprised when you see that Muggles are also playing on the teams. In the underworld everything's weird, it's sort of a world turned upside down, and here even Muggles can fly a broomstick."

"Cedric… what'd you think, will I meet my parents and Sirius here?"

Cedric let out a hearty laugh. "You bet you will, mate!"

* * *

"So, where do you live?" asked Draco as he led the still-hysterical Phaedra across Falaf Alley.

"D'you expect me to tell you where the Circle headquarters can be found?" she snapped. "Because if you do, then you're stupider than I thought!"

"Thanks, but if you don't mind, I don't take this insult to heart, knowing that you said it when you were not in your right mind," he replied coolly. "If you don't want me to escort you to your home, then I'll take you to a hotel."

"All right, then, if I can't get rid of you any other way, then let's go to Nikias', he has rooms above his tavern," she grunted, and they made their way to the restaurant.

"I'd like a room, Nik," Phaedra told the owner.

"As you wish, Mrs Creevey… but, may I ask what happened to you? You look sad."

"There's no Mr Creevey anymore, Nik," she whispered.

"What?" the owner's eyes widened. "You don't mean that Colin… died?"

"That's exactly what I mean, Nik."

"I truly feel with you, my dear," sighed Nikias. "How did it happen?"

"Perhaps I'll tell you another time… I'm just too tired now."

"Of course. Here's your key, dear." The owner handed her a key. "Seamus, take care of her." He looked at Draco whom he believed to be Harry's cousin.

"I will." Draco nodded, feeling slightly uncomfortable, and followed Phaedra up the stairs.

"You can leave me alone now, Malfoy," she said as she entered the room, followed by the young wizard. "I'm safe and I promise I won't commit suicide nor will I set fire to this place or anything…"

"Right." He nodded. "Calm down and sleep, and tomorrow you'll see everything differently."

"Differently?" She turned to face him, her huge black eyes again ablaze with fury. "What would be different tomorrow? It doesn't matter which day it is, my husband's dead, and won't come back tomorrow, or any other day!"

"I know… and I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Oh, good that you show a bit of compassion, Harry's death being just as much your fault as your wife's!" she yelled at him.

"Mine?" He blinked.

"Yeah, yours!" She stabbed him hard in the chest with her index finger. "Had you not forced that red-haired trollop to marry you, then she wouldn't have wanted to be free and wouldn't have asked Harry to help her… and then Harry wouldn't have died…" At the end of the sentence Phaedra was no longer shouting, her voice faltered and she broke out in tears again.

"Hey, come here." He gathered her into his arms and she sobbed on his shoulder. Draco gently caressed her raven black hair as her body quivered in his arms.

She drew back a bit and looked into his eyes. "Why, Malfoy? Why did he have to die…? Am I cursed?"

"Of course you're not."

"Two weeks ago I lost my daughter… yesterday… I lost my husband… who will I lose next? My brother? My friends?"

"You won't lose anyone else… on the contrary… you'll have new friends… I'll be your friend, too. I _am_ your friend."

"Are you?" She furrowed her elegant eyebrows, sniffing.

"Someone who teamed up with me to get our loved ones back, can only be my friend. A quirky, temperamental, sarcastic friend, but a friend nevertheless."

"Were you describing me, or yourself?" She smiled faintly.

Without answering, he reached out and wiped a tear away from her face. Before he could pull his hand back, she grasped it, as if never wanting to let go of it. For a moment they stood there like that, neither of them moving, just staring into each other's eyes… in the next moment Phaedra's mouth was on Draco's, he could taste her salty tears on her lips. _What am I doing?_ - the question ran through his mind, but he forgot it as quickly as it had occurred to him…


	17. Tears and Consolations

**A/N: **this chapter is a fill-in, nothing else. I felt I had to show the characters' reactions to Harry's 'death', so that's what this chapter is mostly about. Don't expect any action. 

Whoever writes the 1000th review, will have the next chapter dedicated to them! :)   
  
  


**Chapter 17**

**Tears and consolations**

_"Be happy while you're alive,_   
_for you're a long time dead."_   
(Scottish Proverb)   


"I can't believe it! Can't believe it! Just can't. Believe. It." Hermione said passionately. "He can't have died, Tonks!" 

"I wish he hadn't, Hermione," the young Auror sighed, leaning against the window-frame in Ron and Hermione's small downtown flat. "But according to Ginny, and Harry's. er. _wife_, he's no longer with us." 

"How? How did it happen?" asked Ron, his voice shaking, his face so pale that his freckles stood out more than ever. He was clutching the armrests of the couch so tightly that his knuckles also turned white. 

"I can't tell you much about it," Tonks shook her violet-haired head. "All Ginny said was that he'd died, and that woman - Harry's wife - accused Ginny of having caused Harry's death. I tried to ask Ginny how it had happened, but I couldn't get a single word out of her. When we arrived at the Burrow, she went and locked herself up in her room. Not even Molly managed to talk to her, at least not until after I left them to come here." 

Ron propped his chin into his palms, gazing at the carpet with glassy eyes. Next to him Hermione was silently wiping her tears. Hearing her sniff, he turned to her and gathered her into his arms. 

"Oh, Rooooon," she sobbed, her whole body shaking. "I was so. so happy when he came back. I thought. I thought we'd have him back again. I never thought that was the last time we'd see him." 

"It never occurred to me, either," he whispered into her bushy hair. "Wonder what Malfoy will do now. that he knows Ginny eloped with Harry." 

"Well, Malfoy hasn't returned to England yet." Tonks interjected. "He took on to escort Harry's wife home. you know, that woman was in a terrible state, and he feared she'd harm herself." 

"Oh. Malfoy's shown concern for someone?" Ron's mouth tucked into a bitter smile. "One thing's sure: we won't let him harm Ginny when he gets back." 

"Of course we won't," Hermione said resolutely, drawing back from him, looking for a hanky in her pocket, but finding none. 

"Here," Ron handed her a tissue. "Let's go to the Burrow, shall we? Perhaps we'll manage to convince Ginny to talk. or even if not, we can still be with her, calm her." 

"I'm not sure I could calm anyone when I'm far from calm," whispered Hermione and blew her nose, "but of course we can try." 

"I'll go and tell Remus the sad news," said Tonks distractedly. "Right. see you." With that she Disapparated. 

Ron and Hermione were left alone, and the young witch flung herself on Ron's neck again, silently crying. Not struggling any longer to ignore the burning sensation in his eyes, he let a single tear run down his cheek. "We'll miss you, Harry, mate," he whispered into the thin air over Hermione's shoulder. She gave a loud sob at hearing his words and tightened her grip on the back of his shirt, clinging to him as desperately as she had never done before. Ron had never been the emotional type, he had been called an insensitive wart by Hermione, according to whom he had the emotional range of a teaspoon, but for probably the first time in his life he truly began to cry. His first droplet of tear was followed by a whole flood of new ones, and he didn't even bother to wipe them away but let them run freely down his face, onto Hermione's locks. 

Memory after memory flashed through Ron's mind. 

_"Are you really Harry Potter? And have you really got that - you know."_

The Harry in his memories lifted his fringe and let him glimpse his scar for the first time. How poor Harry had hated that scar. how much he had suffered because of it. and now his suffering had come to an end. 

_"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"_

_"I don't know. I think Hermione does, though, why not try her?"_

Oh, good old, cheeky Harry! 

_"Yeah, Quirrel was a great teacher, there was just that minor drawback of him having Lord Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head."_

He had stood up to everyone - Snape, even that cow Umbridge. and Voldemort. 

"Oh, are you starting at Hogwarts this year?" 

How Ginny had blushed at this question. Back then Ron had never imagined that his sister would be the one to see his best friend die. 

_"Fleur didn't turn up. I couldn't leave her."_

_"Harry, you prat, you didn't take that song thing seriously, did you?"_

Oh yeah, Harry was the type to take things seriously all the time. Was that the reason for his death? 

_Oh, Harry, Harry, why did you always have to act the hero? Hermione had always feared it'd be the end of you one day. you stupid git, you!_ Ron screwed up his face against the howl of pain that wanted to escape his mouth and hugged   
Hermione as firmly as he could, as if fearing he'd lose her, too. 

* * * * * 

Draco opened his eyes, blinked and realised that his surroundings weren't familiar at all. For one thing, the ceiling was painted yellow. He didn't remember ever sleeping in a bed that stood in a room with a yellow ceiling, and that was saying something, because he had slept in at least a dozen different beds, most of which belonged to pretty young witches. 

He shifted his glance to see out of the window, beyond which a huge board advertised the shop of Aesculapius the Apothecary (_all sorts of potions and poisons available_). 

_Aesculapius?_ He frowned. It sounded Greek. He strained his mind to remember what had happened and how he had got here. a letter from a certain Mrs Potter. the Leaky Cauldron. Athens. Delphi. the stupid oracle. the Row of Gods. Styx. _Potter._

Potter falling into the river. 

Potter's death. 

_Phaedra._

Phaedra having hysterics, Phaedra accusing first Ginny then him of being at fault over Potter's death, Phaedra crying on his shoulder, Phaedra kissing him. 

_Kissing him???_

He sat bolt upright. A soft moan came from his left as the spring mattress moved after he sat up. 

_I have a very bad feeling about this,_ Draco thought and slowly, very slowly turned his head to look left. 

There she was, the sexiest woman he'd ever met, languidly sprawled on the sheet; her wavy, ebony black hair spread on the pillow; her blouse open, slightly torn as though it had been ripped open, her lacy black brassière still in place (_hadn't I unclasped it?_ - he wondered). Her eyes were still puffy from crying, but they looked prettily puffy. 

_What the heck got into me?_ Draco ran his hand through his silvery blond locks. _Get away from here. Just get away from here!_

Carefully he slid out from under the covers and told himself that he must have been totally out of his mind, and to such an extent that he hadn't even properly got rid of his trousers just dropped them to his ankles - he had never been this careless about sex before, he was the type who loved impressing women by doing everything slowly and properly. what had got into him this time? Why hadn't he cared about doing it properly with Phaedra? Why hadn't he wanted to impress her? 

He shook his head. This wasn't the time for contemplating things, especially not when he was standing there, his shirt hanging on him, wrinkled (obviously he hadn't bothered to take it off, either), his most private parts totally exposed. 

Phaedra moaned in her sleep again, and Draco hastily pulled up his boxers and trousers, did up the buttons on his tattered shirt and crouched down to look for his shoes. He found one of them under the bed, the other one half way across the room. With a swish of his wand he made his appearance acceptable and tiptoed to the door. He'd have to leave this tavern as soon as possible. He had heard from Phaedra the last time they visited Nikias' that there was an Anti-Apparition charm on the whole building, so he needed to walk out of it to leave this darned place at last. 

At the door he cast one last glance at the young widow, and a strange emotion clenched at his heart. It wasn't a pleasant thing at all, it hurt him and gave him the impression that some invisible force was trying to throttle him. For the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy had pangs of remorse. 

Damn it, he cursed himself as he opened the door. _Don't look back, Malfoy! What would it help if you did? What would you say to her? That you're sorry for taking advantage of her grief and shagging her senseless? Come on, you have never felt sorry for shagging a woman before! But then again, none of the women you shagged so far had lost their husbands only a couple of hours before. Get a grip, Malfoy! You had a bit of fun with her, so what? She wasn't complaining, was she? She seemed to be enjoying herself. So why have pangs of remorse? You merely consoled the poor thing in her deep grief. Hell, since when have I been talking to myself???_

Draco kicked himself hard in the shin as Phaedra had once done. The pain was horrible but it had the effect he'd expected from it: it made him come to his senses. 

As quietly as he could, he closed the door behind himself and sprinted down the stairs, through the restaurant ('Leaving so early, Seamus?' - Nikias shouted after him), and out onto the street, from where he Apparated back to England. 

* * * * * 

Harry made his way towards the Quidditch stadium that stood not far away from Hades' palace. He had only spent about three hours in the underworld and already he was being sent to a training session - Hades must have been desperate to secure Elysium's victory over Tartarus if he wanted Harry to start training at once. 

So, wearing Cedric's light blue Quidditch uniform, Harry padded towards the pitch, above which shapes were zooming on broomsticks, but he couldn't make them out from such a distance. It took about ten minutes of walking from the king's palace to the pitch, and this time Harry wasn't walking with Cedric - for Cedric had departed with Hades' consent -, but totally on his own. When he had walked with young Diggory to the mahogany tree, they had been so deep in conversation that Harry couldn't even properly pay attention to his surroundings, all he had seen was that Elysium was a pretty place. This time, however, his eyes drank in the sea of wildflowers gently swaying in the breeze on the endless meadows, his ears recorded the cheerful chirping of the birds and gurgling of the tiny, crystal-clear brooks, and his nostrils got filled with the most wondrous fragrance: flowers, mixed with the fresh scent of grass. He had smelled pleasant things before, but the meadows on the Hogwarts grounds or Aunt Petunia's flowerbeds never managed to smell this sweet. For a moment he felt like jumping and whooping at the top of his lungs, but held himself back, suspecting that other residents of Elysium would think he'd gone mad, and he also thought that cheering too jubilantly in the underworld would be some sort of sacrilege, this being a place of the dead. 

Then, as his thoughts wandered off to Ginny, he felt shame wash over him - how could it even occur to him to jump and shout when she was very likely in prison - either in a prison of Athens, or in the prison of her marriage to Draco. However, he shouldn't have felt ashamed, for Elysium was indeed a place that made one want to jump for joy, it was exactly like Harry had always imagined heaven to be; a place so refreshing, so happy, so wonderful that it made one forget all about their sorrows.   
Strangely Harry couldn't fully forget his sorrows and guilt, not like all the other residents of Elysium. perhaps because he wasn't dead? 

He reached the gate of the pitch. _So, I'm going to meet Gryffindor, eh?_ he thought and pushed the door open.   
At first his team mates didn't even notice him, they kept passing Quaffles to each other and trying to beat the Bludgers off their course. 

What struck Harry as surprising was that the Quaffle the Chasers of Elysium were playing with, seemed very different from the Pennifold Quaffle that Alicia, Katie and Angelina had used to pass to each other. on one hand it wasn't red, but white - this was acceptable, since Harry thought that in the underworld there was no winter, so the Quaffle didn't need to be red to stand out if dropped into the snow. On the other hand, it wasn't even perfectly round like the Pennifold Quaffle - it had some holes and dents in it. but Harry couldn't make it out while it was zooming above. Suddenly one of the Chasers dropped the Quaffle with a yelp. 

Harry, who had not seen the players' faces properly from the ground, jumped aside from the path of the falling white ball. The 'Quaffle' landed on the very spot Harry had been standing on a nanosecond earlier and he finally saw what those holes in it were: eye-sockets. Eye-sockets of a skull. 

Before he even had time to say an 'ewwww', the Chaser who had just yelled landed right next to him. "HARRY!" 

The young wizard looked up from the skull-ball to see a pair of familiar dark eyes glinting at him from behind a curtain of shaggy dark brown, shoulder-length hair. 

"Sirius?" he whispered. 

"Harry!" his godfather shouted, this time angrily. "What the hell are you doing here?" 

"Playing Quidditch?" Harry allowed himself a faint grin. 

Sirius reached out and shook him. "But why? Whyyyy?" 

"Because Cedric had to go and." 

".why didn't you better take care of yourself? You weren't supposed to die this early!" 

"Er, Sirius." Harry began. 

"Harry? Is this really you?" another male voice came from his right. Harry turned in the direction of the voice to see a tall man with black hair sticking out in all directions. 

"Dad?" he swallowed hard. 

"Harry!" James gathered him into his arms, squeezing him so tightly that Harry thought he'd either suffocate or his ribs would crack any second. Suddenly James pushed him back, holding him at arm's length, his warm brown eyes scanning his son's every feature. "My, you do look like me! But why did you have to die? Did Voldemort kill you? That bastard, so Trelawney's prophecy actually did come true." 

"Dad," Harry shook his head, almost finding the situation amusing. "Dad, I'm not dead." 

"What? Not dead?" James squinted at Sirius, who shrugged with a confused expression. 

Suddenly a lithe figure stepped out from behind James, and without a word reached out and cupped Harry's face in her hands. "I was dying to see you again, but I was hoping I wouldn't see you this soon. my little baby." 

Before Harry could even say a word, Lily Potter embraced him, pulling his head down to hers - he had to bend at least ten centimetres to be at the same level with her. 'Little baby', indeed. 

Harry's nostrils got again filled with the honey and hyacinth aroma of her hair. _I won't cry_, he told himself, but it was a hard business keeping his tears at bay. 

Lily drew back a bit and looked into his eyes; for a lingering moment green eyes met equally green ones. "He's telling the truth," she said, turning to James and Sirius. "He's alive. My baby Harry's alive." 

"Muuuum, I'm no." Harry couldn't utter 'baby anymore', for Sirius jerked him sideways to face him. 

"Wow, really! His eyes, look at his eyes, James!" 

"Holy Snitch," James shook his head incredulously, and his mouth tucked into a mischievous grin. "You're truly alive. What are you doing here then, son?" 

"Playing Quidditch," Harry repeated. 

"Hey, hey, what's going on here?" a harsh voice tore at the air from above. 

Harry looked up to see a man with a black beard sitting on his broom with a back as straight as though he were a proud knight riding a horse. 

"What's this commotion? Get back to practice, lazy lot!" 

"Come off it, Godric," waved James. 

"Come off it?" the bearded man snapped. "We're playing Tartarus in a week and you're telling me to _come off it?_" 

"Would he have a descendant called Oliver Wood by any chance?" Harry whispered to Sirius. 

"Just to inform you, Godric," said James, "my son Harry just turned up here in the underworld - alive. And I want to talk to him. So do Lily and Sirius, right?" 

"Certainly," nodded Lily. 

"Cancel training for today, old chap," added Sirius. 

"Your son turned up?" Gryffindor knitted his eyebrows, looking slightly menacing that way. "Why?" 

"Er, to substitute for Cedric Diggory, sir," replied Harry. "He had to leave the underworld urgently." 

"He's left?" Sirius and James gasped. It was highly unusual for someone to leave the underworld. 

"Have you ever played Seeker, boy?" asked Gryffindor scathingly. 

"'Course he has!" Sirius put an arm around his godson's neck. "He's the best darn Seeker I've ever known, Ricky." 

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Ricky?" Godric scowled at him, then turned back to Harry. "How long are you staying, boy?" 

"Until Cedric returns, of course." 

"Right. I'd like to see what you're capable of," nodded the Captain. 

"Yeah, you will, old chap - just not today," grinned James. "Today he's ours. Come, son, let's go home. Want daddy to give you a piggyback?" 

Harry squinted at Sirius with an incredulous expression that suggested he didn't know whether to laugh or scowl at his father.   
Sirius just waved merrily and steered Harry out of the stadium, leaving the fuming Godric Gryffindor and the two befuddled Beaters - one with a huge Roman nose, the other with girlish golden locks - behind. 

* * * * * 

Jason 'Hightower' Stephanides was playing chess with his girlfriend Leto Papafotiu as the door of the common room in the headquarters of the Circle of Hermes opened and his sister entered. 

Jason dropped the bishop he was holding and jumped up. "Phaedra! What happened? You look a fright!" 

His usually stunning sister resembled a banshee with her face deadly pale, her hair unruly and her eyes full of something that Jason couldn't identify - was it pain? Was it rage? Or a mixture of the two? 

"He's dead," she whispered as she sank down onto a cushion, propping her elbows on the chessboard (not caring that she knocked off the figures) and hiding her face in her palms. 

"Who?" Jason asked. 

"My husband." 

Leto let out a small squeak at the other end of the table, but Phaedra didn't seem to hear her, perhaps she hadn't even noticed her presence. 

"You mean. Harry?" whispered Jason. 

"Why? Did I have more than one husband?" Phaedra snapped, her eyes sending lightning bolts at her brother. 

"It's okay, it's okay, calm down, sis," he said soothingly and reached out to put an arm around her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. 

"It's NOT okay, Jason," she said in a raspy voice, again hiding her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook, so he was sure she was crying, though he couldn't see her face. 

"I. I'd better go now," whispered Leto and tiptoed out of the common room. Barely had she closed the door behind herself when she met Nausika, the Chief-of-Circle. 

Nausika wanted to enter the common room, but Leto held out her hand. "No. Don't go in there now." 

"Why not?" 

"Because. because Phaedra just returned." 

"With Harry?" 

Leto shook her head. "Alone. Harry's dead." 

Nausika thought she'd die on the spot. "Dead? D - E - A - D?" 

Leto nodded, tears brimming her eyes. 

"But. but how? I mean. he was here just three days ago, I even talked to him." the always so cool, strict chief had to lean against the wall to support her weight, for she felt she'd faint if she didn't. "Harry Potter. dead? I never. never thought. He was so talented. he could have been the best here in the Circle if he hadn't left. He was so brave. he was never afraid, no matter what sort of a mission he had to take part in. the only one he ever feared was You-Know." her voice faltered. She well remembered the conversation she had had with Harry a couple of days earlier - the conversation in which Harry admitted having let Voldemort flee. "Was it. was it You-Know-Who? Did You-Know-Who kill him?" 

"I don't know," Leto said. "Perhaps Phaedra will tell you. when she's feeling better. Now Jason's with her, she's sobbing her heart out." 

"The poor thing," Nausika sighed. "Losing a child and a husband in a short two weeks. Life's so damn unfair." 

Leto just nodded mutely and they set off for their rooms, leaving the young widow to cry on her brother's shoulder in peace. 

* * * * * 

"Holy heavens," Remus muttered, sinking into his armchair in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. He had started working there after Kingsley Shacklebolt had been appointed the new Minister for Magic. Kingsley had believed that if a werewolf was working for this department, it would give the image of the Ministry treating magical creatures (also including beasts, ghosts and beings) with more respect and caring for their welfare. Remus had managed to fit in pretty quickly and was enjoying his work that provided him with the opportunity to help his own kind through legislation passed in his department. 

"First the attack on Amos, now Harry. Are you sure that he's._ dead_?" 

"I'm afraid so, Remy," sighed his wife, sitting on the armrest of his chair, propping her head on his. 

"How did it happen?" 

"I don't know," Tonks replied. "I couldn't make Ginny reveal any more, she was in such a state of shock. I think she loved him very much." 

"Yeah, I also thought she did. but then, why did she marry Draco Malfoy?" said Lupin thoughtfully. 

"That's something I never managed to understand," she shook her head. "D'you think we should tell the press about Harry?" 

"They'll find out sooner or later, I suppose," Remus heaved a sigh. "The death of the Boy Who Lived can't be kept a secret, after all. remember what big news his disappearance was, too. all the newspapers were filled with articles like _The Boy Who Has Gone Missing_. poor thing, he was so young." 

"My heart's aching for Ginny. and also for that. Phaedra, or whoever," Tonks whispered. 

"Oh, you mean his wife?" Remus grimaced. "Tell you what, she wasn't the one for him. They just didn't fit. At least." 

"I know what you mean," she nodded. "I always imagined Harry getting together with Ginny. Actually I felt thrilled when they eloped. Bugger, if we tell the press - for we have to tell them -, we can't reveal that the Boy Who Lived died after eloping with Malfoy's wife. what would people say?" 

"I for one believe that Harry wouldn't care what people said about him. eloped with Ginny or not, he'll always remain the boy who rid the world of Voldemort for thirteen years. I doubt people would remember him as a low-down seducer instead of as a hero. I'm more worried about Ginny. People tend to say only nice things about the dead, but they are always ready to speak ill of the living, and Ginny's alive. she'll have to endure all the evil remarks." 

"Yes, that's what I fear, too," Tonks agreed. "I think we should ask Kingsley, he'll know how to present this to the press without destroying anyone's good reputation." 

Lupin slid an arm around his wife's thin waist and pulled her down from the armrest into his lap. "He's with Sirius at least, Tonks. He was missing his godfather so much. and his parents." his voice trailed off. "He's. he's together with them at last." 

She looked into his warm grey eyes, seeing that they were slightly watering. "Cry if you want to, Remy. It helps. I've cried already." 

"No." he shook his head. "I think he's in a better place now. We shouldn't cry. he's happy now, I'm sure of it." 

"Perhaps you're right," she whispered, her nose touching his. Soon not only their noses touched, but their lips, too. With a flick of her wand, Tonks sealed the door of the office and let Remus make her forget about her grief, at least for a short time. 

* * * * * 

"Ginny?" Hermione knocked on the youngest Weasley's door. There was no reply from inside. "Ginny, it's me, Hermione, let me in!" 

Silence. 

"Ginny. I understand if you don't want to see anyone who'd ask weird questions, but if you like, I promise I won't ask anything. just let me in, please. or else I'll sleep here, in front of your door!" 

Hermione waited and waited for what seemed to be an eternity before the door finally creaked open and a ghostly-pale Ginny appeared. 

The red-haired witch motioned her inside, then closed the door again, and with a swish of her wand sealed it from unwanted guests. 

Ginny sat back down on her bed and Hermione took a place next to her. At one moment they were just sitting there, next to each other, at the next one Hermione was embracing her friend and Ginny was hugging her back, as though her life depended on not letting go of her. It had only been five days earlier that her mother had been sitting here on her bed, next to her, and she had hugged her to say thanks for her advice and support. Molly had encouraged her to go to Harry and talk to him. now Ginny wished that her mother had rather dissuaded her. then Harry would still be alive. 

"It's my fault, Hermione. Phaedra was right, it's my fault, only mine!" she whispered into her friend's bushy brown hair. 

"Tsk, tsk, what are you saying there?" the older witch said soothingly, cradling Ginny in her arms, though she felt she needed someone to cradle her, too. She needed consolation just as much Ginny did. 

"The truth," breathed Ginny, pulling slightly back. Hermione would have sworn that she had been crying, but now that she saw Ginny's face it was clear that she hadn't shed a single tear. She looked broken, but her eyes weren't watering in the slightest. Hermione almost envied Ginny for the ability of not crying, for she felt she was dissolving into tears again. 

"What. what truth?" sniffed Hermione, drying her cheeks with a tissue. 

"It's my fault, Herm. Had I not asked for his help, he'd still be alive." 

"His help? What'd you mean by that?" 

"I can't tell you, I'm sorry," Ginny shook her head. "And you promised me not to ask questions, remember." 

"Yeah, right," Hermione nodded with a small, sad smile. "I promised it. But I only did so to see you, to make sure you were all right." 

"You mean you feared I was thinking of committing suicide?" Ginny raised an eyebrow. "No, Hermione. I'm not even brave enough for that. I should have been brave enough to continue carrying this burden alone, without complaining. I shouldn't have asked for his help. but I was only thinking of getting free at last, not caring that I might make him get into trouble. I'm a selfish bitch." 

"No, you're not," the other girl shook her head, confused. What was Ginny talking about? What burden? Getting free from what? She simply didn't understand. 

"Oh, yes, I _am_ selfish," Ginny protested. 

"But you're definitely no bitch," Hermione tried to joke, only to get a piercing look from her friend. 

"That is exactly what I am," said Ginny with a disgusted grimace, and Hermione had the impression that Ginny was disgusted with herself. Seeing Hermione's bewildered expression, Ginny continued. "I slept with him." 

"That's. not that surprising, you know," said Hermione after a short pause. "You two eloped, after all." 

"You don't understand anything!" Ginny hopped up from her bed. "I didn't elope with him! I just. can't tell you, but. I didn't go with him having the intention to shag him, Hermione! It just came. unexpectedly." 

The elder witch stood up and put an arm around her friend's shaking shoulder. "Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault that he's so gorgeous. _was_ so gorgeous." her voice faltered. "Nor is it your fault that he died." 

"You don't know anything." Ginny whispered. 

"Then you could perhaps fill me in." suggested Hermione. 

"I can't. Anyway, no questions - you promised me." 

"I promised you, but you can't keep it a secret for ever, Gin. People will want to know at least how he died." 

"If they're curious, they should ask Draco. He was also there. I bet he'd love to tell the press all about the death of his old enemy." 

"Don't be such a cynic, Ginny." 

"I'm no cynic, Herm. I just feel that my heart has been ripped out. and one can't live without a heart. so I want to die." 

Understanding that she wouldn't succeed in getting to know anything from her friend, Hermione just gathered her into another embrace, trying to channel a bit of encouragement into Ginny, which was a hard business, for Hermione herself felt weak and discouraged. Her heart ached as it never had before - she had never even thought of Harry dying (perhaps with the exception of their first Divination lesson), and now she simply didn't know how to cope with the cruel reality. While her heart ached for Harry, it also bled for Ginny. She knew Ginny must be suppressing her emotions, perhaps that's why she wasn't crying, and Hermione was aware that suppressed emotions could hurt one more than crying for hours. Why was Ginny trying to ignore her pain? Could it be because of the shock? Yes, that had to be it, Hermione thought. She remembered the day her grandfather died. It had come so suddenly, so shocking that her mother hadn't even cried for several hours after it, although it had been her father who had died. Hours after her grandpa dying, Hermione's mother finally started to cry, and it felt as though some sort of a dam had suddenly broken through in her soul, letting all her sorrows pour out like a flood. and as her tears flowed down her cheeks, she felt relieved, light as a feather. 

However, it seemed that Ginny was denied the relief of crying, and Hermione feared that it'd damage her friend's fragile soul much more than crying for a whole week. 

* * * * * 

"Ron! Good ter see yeh!" said Hagrid cheerfully, slapping his young friend in the back with such force that Ron tumbled against the table. "I wasn' expectin guests, yer know, that's why things are a bit. er. not so tidy." 

Ron almost smiled - almost. Hagrid was talking as though it had been unusual for his house to be untidy. Fang leapt at him, trying to lick his face. "Well, I wasn't really planning to visit you today, but. things happened and I felt I had to tell you." 

"You look concerned, mate, what's the problem?" asked the half-giant. 

"It's. it's about Harry." 

Barely had he uttered the name when a flutter of wings could be heard and a very annoyed Hedwig soared up from her perch on Hagrid's armchair to one of the rafters, turning her back on Ron. 

Ron never knew what the owl's problem was, but he clearly remembered how shaken the poor bird had been after Harry had disappeared five years ago, and remembered even more clearly what Hedwig looked like after he and Hermione had sent her after Harry. They never got to know exactly what happened to the owl on her journey, whether she ever found Harry or not, but when she got back from her journey, she was totally lethargic. She didn't want to go hunting, she seemed to have decided that she'd starve to death. 

No one ever got to know that Hedwig had actually managed to find Harry, but he had set fire to Ron and Hermione's letter in front of her and had told her to go back to England and never look for him again. When Hedwig had wanted to fly onto his shoulder and 'cuddle' a bit with her master, he rudely shooed her away. 

Hedwig didn't know that it had caused Harry huge pangs of remorse later, that he had regretted a thousand times being so nasty to his faithful owl, but he couldn't just send Hedwig an owl and apologise. 

Hedwig never managed to forgive him for sending her away so rudely, for she didn't understand what had happened to Harry before he'd left - she had no idea about Voldemort's blackmail and Ginny breaking Harry's heart. all she knew was that 'her master' had deeply hurt her, and that she never ever wanted to hear about that ungrateful sod again. 

To try and help the poor, depressed owl, Ron had taken her to Hagrid, the only man who possibly knew something about animal psychology. and Hedwig had lived with Hagrid ever since. 

So, to express her indignation at hearing Harry's name again, Hedwig soared up to a rafter, clicked her beak indignantly and pretended not to be listening to the conversation of the two wizards. 

"Why, what happened ter him?" asked Hagrid brightly. "Has he come back?" 

"Yeah. he came back five days ago," nodded Ron. 

"An' why hasn' he visited me yet, then?" Hagrid asked in a slightly hurt tone. 

"Because he left shortly after he returned," sighed Ron, not knowing how to present this all to Hagrid, who had been Harry's first friend, the first ever person to care for him after his parents' death. Even Rita Skeeter had 'accused' the half-giant of being a father-substitute for Harry. 

"He left again, with Ginny." 

"Ginny?" Hagrid raised his eyebrows. "You don' mean those two. eloped?" 

"Well, sort of, but." 

"That's great, Ron!" Hagrid clasped his hands. "I always knew they'd end up together, I did! I remember yer little sister comin' ter visit me house in her firs' year, she came so often an' I knew she was comin' because she was hopin' ter see Harry! Am I glad ter hear the news!" 

"Hagrid!" Ron held up his hands. "Hagrid. this isn't what I wanted to tell you. Harry. Harry's dead." 

"WHAT?" rumbled the half-giant, his voice so harsh that the glass in his window almost shattered. "Yeh don' mean it!?!" 

Hedwig, against her will, clearly heard Ron's words. She went rigid on the rafter, as though she had been petrified. 

Ron bent down to pat Fang's head, so that he didn't need to look at Hagrid. "I'm sorry. but I do mean it. He died in Greece. but I don't know more. Ginny. Ginny would, she saw him die. but she isn't willing to talk about it." Slowly he lifted his face to see huge tear-droplets coursing down Hagrid's face, running into his shaggy beard. 

"Tell me. tell me it's not true. Ron." the gamekeeper rasped. 

"I wish it weren't Hagrid." 

In the next instant Hedwig swooped down on the red-haired wizard, madly fluttering her wings, her beak snapping towards Ron's face, as if she was trying to scream 'No! You're lying! That can't be true!' 

"Calm down, Hedwig," Hagrid reached out and pulled the owl back before she could take Ron's eye out. "Calm down, girl. it's no use goin' all hysterical. that won' bring him back." Sniffing, he started to look for a handkerchief in one of his several pockets. He blew his nose so loudly that it rather sounded like a honk. 

"I'm sorry for bringing bad news. but I felt you deserved to get to know before others do." Ron hung his head while Fang slobbered onto his shoes. 

Hedwig's outburst had finally subsided and she was hanging limply in Hagrid's dustbin-sized hand. If Ron hadn't been sure that birds couldn't cry, he would have sworn that he'd seen tears in Hedwig's amber eyes.   
Silence fell over the gamekeeper's tiny house, a silence as deep as the sorrow in their hearts.   
  


**A/N2: **next chapter will be happier, don't worry :) 

_TrixieFirecracker_: time passes the same way in the Underworld as in the real world. Ten months up are ten months down in the underworld, too. Harry's parents won't give him anything to help him defeat Voldie, but someone(s) else(s) will. Ginny won't even have a chance to try to make Draco believe that the baby is his. Draco will be angry when he gets to know about the pregnancy, because it'll be obvious for him that the baby can't be his. 

_Altec_: of course I'm not going to tell you what will happen with Voldemort. You'll have to wait and see. 

_Sarahamanda_: not telling anything, you'll get to know in time ;) 

_Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: nope, the underworld Quidditch match won't last for months. 

_Mistri, Tonks' Admirer_: I ALWAYS said there were going to be 31 chapters. Perhaps you're mistaking the fic for another one? Ahhhh, clever one! Now you're the second person who thought of the Styx thingie. 

_Wizzabee_: honestly, can you imagine Draco being a member of the Circle? I can't. So he won't become a member. 

_Black Ice_: the reason why I wrote casualty was that my Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines the word like this: **casualty **_n "_someone who is hurt or killed in an accident or battle". So not only the dead are called casualties, but the injured as well. I think Hera was uptight enough, not all gods have to be like her, they can be fun-loving and interesting characters, they don't all need to be as boring as Hera, IMHO. If it isn't a great problem for you, then next time please, point out my grammar mistakes. Thanks. 

_Liz Dockson_: you asked how Cedric knew about Sirius. Well, since they were on the same Quidditch team, I assume that they must have talked a lot, and Sirius had told Cedric that he was Harry's godfather. Harry is going to ask about Daffy in the next chapter. 

_jordy-n-peyts mama_: now you know what's up with D/P ;) Our fave Dark Lord finds out about Harry's 'death' in the next chapter. 

_fireflydiamond_: is it? *blushes* thanks! 

_xxGinnyxx_: yup, Ginny's pregnant now, but she won't find out for a while. 

_Elfy19_: yes, that's how Ginny could get pregnant. Another fic? Dunno. If I write one, then it will be a totally different one, NOT a sequel to this one. No idea yet, really. 

_hypnotic-babe_: yes, the pond cured her. Read my answer to Elfy19 (just above you). 

_Jaquelyne_: I'm glad you think I set up H/G and D/P fabulously :) 

_OfTheWest_: Aphrodite the SON of Zeus? _Daughter_, isn't she? Yes, Draco will STILL be mad about Ginny having Harry's baby. 

_Myr Halcyon_: I don't think I took the 'don't be long, Cedric' part from anywhere. Surely not from Dead Poets, especially because I've seen it only in Hungarian, and I don't remember anything from the discussions (only that they keep repeating Carpe Diem). 

_starheart20_: I'm glad you finally decided to read it :) You almost got the meaning of Amrita's name - almost. Yes, the Weasleys will know who the father of Ginny's baby is, but they will find out from Molly, not from Ginny. 

_Paige_: of all the couples you mentioned, D/P are like Han/Leia a bit, not a thing like Rose/Jack or Elizabeth/Will (actually I was for Elizabeth/Jack Sparrow, the Eliza/Will pairing disappointed me). Of course I didn't have the heart to kill my dear Harry off :D 

_Hedwig55_: you'll see how Ginny gets to know about her pregnancy and how Draco reacts. It won't be a happy thing... 

_Requiem to a Dream_: yep, Harry will meet Daffy. As for Amrita's mum... you'll see ;) Oh, I envy you! I wish I had the chance to draw nude guys and learn to use PhotoShop! I always envy people who use PhotoShop perfectly. Do you know how to work with layers in PhotoShop? I have no idea, only heard about it, and it intrigues me a lot. Tonks is one _my_ fave arts as well :) I only have two old arts from Enemy, but they aren't that special. However, if you still would like to see them, then drop me a mail and I'll send them to you. Yes, I've read His Dark Materials, and sorry to say that, but it made me sick. Perhaps because I'm a Christian and it was totally anti-Christian with making God out to be an evil, suppressing overlord and killing him at the end. That's just unacceptable for me. However, I read Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart trilogy, and LOVED it. Have you read it? I'm glad I managed to convince you that H/G belong together! :D 

_figgiesblazin_: sort of. I wouldn't say a clear YES, but something like that. 

_ProdigyGirl_: thanks, glad you like my arts :) 

_C-chan1_: the guy in the interview was right. But if I were asked, I'd choose Harry (even if he got me killed ;) Yeah, poor Spiro! Thanks for pointing out the typo. The siren book sounds interesting. If I happen to stumble upon it in a bookshop, I'll buy it for sure. Unfortunately I still haven't seen/read The Princess Bride :( Yes, I've seen Return of the King, liked it a lot. 

_blaubaerin: _nope, I haven't read the Spiegel yet, I only know that it exists. I think we could get it in Hungary, but I don't really buy newspapers, not even Hungarian ones, let alone German ones. Good guessing about Harry's Underworld stay. I don't think the Tracking Charm would show where Harry is, especially because it only shows the map of Earth - I mean the 'real, living Earth', so the Underworld isn't shown on its map. About Sirius reappearing in book six or seven - I don't think so, because JKR said very clearly that he WON'T reappear. Whew, then my fic really has some similarities to Outlander! How funny! I've got to read that book! Thanks for the Hochdeutsch education! :D 

_Lioness-07863_: Cedric won't tell Ginny right away... unfortunately. She'll be torn for a while, the poor thing. 

_DarkFlower2113_: yep, Ginny's pregnant. What was that book about Caesar and Cleopatra called and who wrote it? 

_Inken_: there were Elysium Seekers before Cedric, but since Tartarus is playing so dirty, Elysium always lost its Seekers (people decided it wasn't worth being Elysium Seeker. Sirius or James will talk about this later). About Michael Jackson - LOL. You know, I wrote that part over the summer where his trial hadn't started yet. And this part takes place in September 2003, so he wasn't in jail back then. Yes, perhaps Cedric should have been more emotional about his parents, but my aim wasn't to show Cedric's emotions, rather to show Harry's inner struggle whether to stay and help Cedric or leave and let him down. As for why Harry landed in the underworld? Simply because he fell into the Styx. It was a stupid accident, but it'll have a good outcome. While D/P were snogging, Ginny was taken back to Britain by Tonks and Moody. 

_Wood's secret lover_: nope, Harry isn't immortal. Luna will appear in chapter 21, but she isn't important in this fic at all. 

_kitkat:_ Moldy Voldie wants to get hold of Spiro, since he believes that the one who took the parchment in Atlantis was Spiro. The family photos he stole from the Diggorys help him find Spiro (the Diggorys had some really up-to-date pics of the Greek chap). Certainly, those Death Eaters who had been present in Atlantis had seen 'Spiro', but Voldie is so mad at them for their stupidity, that he'd rather send more capable Death Eaters to Greece to catch Spiro, and the more capable Death Eaters don't have the slightest idea what the boy looks like, thus they need at least a photo to start their search. 

_maureen_: you never read anything that made you cry? Lucky girl, I always go teary whenever something sad or touching happens in a book/fic/movie... I think I'm way too sensitive. Yeah, Draco would definitely have deserved some cuts from the Chimera. Nice to hear that you aren't immune to my cliffies ;) 

_*katie_: no, the child's name won't be Lily or James. 

_Katrina Littlebird_: please read my answer to kitkat. I think Persephone might have fallen for her hubby over the millennia ;) Draco only thinks he loves Ginny... 

_apple-pie_: do you really enjoy this fic better than the trilogy? *blushes* that makes me so happy! The right spelling is Hadie and Persy ;) 

_Elizabeth Darcy_: yep, Harry will see both of them. And no, he won't find out about Ginny's pregnancy while in the underworld. 

_frogilicious_ (even if you aren't here right now): H and G made the way in and out of the Row of Gods free, so Draco, Phaedra and the Aurors could come in without any difficulty. Athena - childish? She didn't even appear. Didn't you want to say Aphrodite? 

_bambooanime_: glad you like it, and nice to see you again :) 

_Noemi_: you guessed well, Draco left (evil Draco!) Yep, you'll see Snape, but only for a second, he won't even have a line. Your poor brother... I never thought that Remus would be the one who'd die in OotP. 

_K_: please read my answer to kitkat. 

_TigHan_: yup, James is playing Quidditch. I think it was ffnet's fault that you didn't get the update alert, not hotmail's fault. Cedric is going to talk to his parents in their dream, and heal them mentally. As for Ginny - well, she won't believe Cedric :( 

_heavenly182angel:_ thanks, I'm glad you've been following the story. As for the review button - I've had difficulties with it, too. When I click on it, it takes ages for the review window to pop up! 

_MilesFromNormal_: I think chapter 16 wasn't huge, chapter 15 was much longer... 

Also thanks to: _Kit Cloudkicker, Embyr Black, Chelsea of the moor, torifire126, Evil Reviewer, Witch of Darkness, Alexander Phoenix, PENNYPACKER, kneh13, goldenstar555, enna seawave, carameLisSa, Written in Stars, iNiGmA, HI-VOLTAGE, dementorchic, Nefertiri, moony*padfoot, ruffled owl_


	18. His Dark Mirth

**A/N:** it seems that ffnet decided to reduce every ellipse into one period, wherever you saw a sentence starting with a small letter in chapter 17, it wasn't my fault, it was ffnet's. I don't have the time or energy to go back and change the punctuation of the last chapter, because I would have to reformat the whole thing for that - so I'll just leave it like that. Allegedly ffnet fixed the problem, so it should be okay in this chapter (I hope it WILL be okay). 

This chapter is dedicated to iNiGmA who wrote the 1000th review. 

Also thanks to Black Ice for the secondary betaing.   
  


**Chapter 18**

**His dark mirth**

  


_I am dead; dead, but in the Elysian fields_   
(Benjamin Disraeli)   


"So, how long have people in the underworld been playing Quidditch?" Harry asked, sitting at a table in his parents' lovely little cottage, sipping some sort of a drink called 'Ambrosia Essence'. It was deliciously sweet, just like the cottage that stood next to a little creek, surrounded by ever-blooming lilac-bushes. Harry had found it quite amazing that people in the underworld were 'living' pretty much the same as the_ living_ ones. 

"Well," Sirius scratched his jaw, looking contemplative. "For about three hundred years, so I heard." 

"Yeah, before Hades got the idea of introducing Quidditch, people here used to play cricket and golf and ostrakindof…" 

"That's ostrakinda," Lily corrected her husband. "It is an ancient Greek chasing game." 

"Yeah, and there was ephedrismos- another stupid ancient Greek game," Sirius continued, "no wonder old Hadie got bored of it, they were really, really stupid games. When he first heard about Quidditch, he immediately knew that this would be the game worth playing… at least that's what he said. According to my uncle Alphard some decades ago they were also experimenting with basketball, but the skulls they were using for balls weren't springy enough and just wouldn't bounce back from the ground." 

Harry grimaced, imagining two dead teams trying to dunk skulls. "Tell me, why are you using skulls as Quaffles?" 

"Oh, those aren't real skulls, but they're pretty good imitations, eh?" smiled James. "Hades thought it'd be fashionable to play with skull-shaped Quaffles, that's why we're using them. Not that I love them too much- but I got used to them over the years." 

"Why, how long have you been playing for Elysium?" 

"Nine years now, Lils too. Sirius joined shortly after he died, so he's been playing for seven years…" James's expression turned sour. "We make a good team together, but we still haven't managed to beat the wretched Tartarus yet. We are counting on you, son. Show 'em and catch that Snitch!" 

"And what's the Snitch made of? Baby-skull?" Harry raised an eyebrow. 

"Nah, it's always a Golden Snidget," waved Sirius. 

"Aren't those almost extinct…? Isn't their usage in Quidditch forbidden?" 

"Why, where do you think all those Golden Snidgets went after they died?" smirked James. "Here, obviously. So we can play with them." 

"Wow, does that mean that all sorts of animals end up in the underworld, too?" 

"Yeah, they do, but most of them are put into a restricted area somewhere beyond the mountains of Elysium. They can't endanger us, and we can't endanger them." 

"_Endanger_?" Harry blinked. "Can the dead also get injured?" 

"'Course they can. We felt quite solid to you when we hugged you, didn't we? And if someone's solid, they can get hurt. Of course we can't die again, but we can obtain injuries, especially from the Bludgers. The Beaters of Tartarus are horrible, I'm telling you," replied Sirius. 

"What're they using as Bludgers?" enquired young Potter. 

"Boulders. Granite boulders. You know, granite's the hardest type of stone- so it can hit really badly." 

"And who else is on the two teams?" 

"Well, let's see…" James started counting. "First Elysium… the three Chasers are Lils, Padfoot and me, the Keeper is Ricky- I mean Godric- Padfoot's presence has rubbed off on me," he winked at his son, "the Beaters are Julius and that idiot Alcibiades…" 

"Why's he an idiot?" asked Harry. 

"Oh, you'll see when you meet him, just wait," Sirius grimaced. 

"…and Julius? What Julius?" 

"Caesar," replied Lily. 

Harry's eyes widened like two huge golden Galleons. "Julius Caesar on your team?" 

"Yeah," grinned James. "Pretty good Beater, just a little annoying when he embarks on long speeches criticising how Hades runs the netherworld… you know, the politician… Well, yeah, you're the Seeker, so that's our team. As for Tartarus… one of the Chasers is Rasputin, he rather reminds me of an older version of Snape…" 

Lily rolled her eyes. "Don't even listen to him, dear, he just hates poor Severus." 

"Pooooor Severuuuus?" James pretended to be shocked. "Well, anyway, their other Chasers are Grindelwald and Henry VIII. Their Keeper is Sal Slytherin and the two Beaters are Cesare and Lucretia Borgia. As for the Seeker, it's Brutus." 

"Who's Brutus?" Harry asked. 

"Caesar's illegitimate son, also the traitor who organised the conspiracy against him. Nasty bloke, if you ask me," shrugged Sirius. 

"Um- how many people do you know here?" 

"Quite a lot. Why?" said James. 

"Because," Harry took a deep breath, "there's someone I'd like to meet." 

"Dumbledore, by any chance?" guessed Sirius. "You'll meet him for sure, he turns up for each Quidditch match." 

"No, it's not Dumbledore," Harry shook his head. He still felt some sort of a defiant resentment towards his onetime headmaster. "It's… my daughter." 

"Your… what?" Lily's eyes widened. 

"My daughter, Daphne," Harry whispered. "She died two weeks ago… she was only four years old, my poor little angel." 

"I had no idea you had a daughter at all!" Sirius said incredulously. "Aren't you a bit too young to be a father?" 

"Oh, come on, Padfoot, he's twenty-three!" James defended his son. 

"Yeah, but if his daughter was four, then he must've been just nineteen when she got conceived!" Sirius reasoned, looking slightly exasperated. Lily shot him an 'it's-not-like-you-didn't-have-sex-at-that-age-Sirius' look. 

"I was only eighteen," Harry interjected. 

"Hah! The little tyke! He must've been a real heartthrob, my son, if he got to…" James began, but Lily's piercing look silenced him. 

She sat down next to Harry and took his hands into hers. "Tell us about Daphne, Harry. I want to know all about my granddaughter. And then… we might try and find her." 

* * * * * 

"Blinky!" Draco shouted, his voice reverberating off the marble walls of Malfoy Manor. 

"Y-yes, my lord?" the house-elf appeared and bowed so deeply that her nose touched the floor. 

"Where's my wife?" 

"Blinky does not know, sir," the house-elf shook her head nervously, her huge bat-like ears flapping around her head. "Mistress told Blinky she was leaving to visit her mother and father five days ago, and she hasn't returned so far. Blinky believes Master will find her at the Burrow." 

"Hm… yeah, that's possible," Draco nodded. 

From Greece he had directly Apparated to his manor to check on Ginny. He knew pretty well that his wife still had feelings for Potter, and Potter's death must have been a real tragedy for her… actually he feared she might harm herself, just like he had feared for Phaedra… He quickly chased the thought of Phaedra out of his mind and decided to visit the Weasleys at the Burrow and claim his wife back. 

At that moment someone knocked on the door. Blinky hurried to open it, and to Draco's greatest surprise none other than the Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt entered, followed by Auror Nymphadora Tonks. 

"To what do I owe the honour of your visit?" young Malfoy looked at the newcomers with a rather unfriendly expression. 

"I thought it was obvious," Tonks said with her arms akimbo. "Harry Potter." 

"What about Potter?" Draco grunted. 

"We'd like to hear the story of his death," replied Minister Shacklebolt seriously. 

"Ask my wife, she'd be able to tell you more," Draco said through gritted teeth. 

"I doubt it," Tonks shook her violet head. "She's in no condition to tell anyone anything. She's in a state of shock." 

"Oh, how terrible," Malfoy said sarcastically. "Okay, what do you want to hear? That Potter died after having eloped with my wife? That my wife is feeling so miserable because she's mourning her dead lover? There, you have it. Now you may go." 

"Mr Malfoy," Kingsley spoke up. "I hope you're aware that Harry Potter's death will have a great impact on Great Britain's wizarding community. People will want to know details. However, before I talk to the press and disclose the sad news, I'd like to hear your version of events, and I'd also like to reach a compromise with you." 

"A compromise?" Draco arched his silvery blond eyebrows at the Minister. 

"Exactly. I take it Mr Potter passed away while with your wife- however, I believe that it wouldn't do any good to either the late Mr Potter's or your and your wife's reputation if this came to light. So please, Mr Malfoy, do inform us how things happened, so that we can tell the press our… how to put it…_ euphemised_ version of the tragic death." 

"You want to deceive the press?" Draco knitted his eyebrows. 

"We have to, if we wish to protect the good will of the Boy Who Lived, and also yours. If we can count on your cooperation, Mr Malfoy, then please, speak on." 

For a moment Draco regarded Shacklebolt and Tonks with a dubious expression, but finally nodded. "All right. Come and have a seat, Minister." 

* * * * * 

That evening Draco went to the Burrow to collect Ginny, and take her back to Malfoy Manor, but the Weaselys wouldn't even let him go near her room. 

"Don't even dream of taking her, you wanker," hissed Fred. 

"Or…?" Draco sent him a challenging look. "What will you do?" 

"Hm…" Fred looked contemplative. "What shall we do with him, George?" 

"Force-feed him our new Laxative Lollies?" George suggested. 

"Wouldn't that be too rude?" worried Fred. "I mean, not to Malfoy, but to us… imagine how the Burrow would stink!" 

"Not that it doesn't stink already," Draco muttered under his breath. 

"Do you want us to beat you up again – like we did in our final Hogwarts year? Remember it, Malfoy? It was for a similar snide remark…" 

"Of course I remember it," Draco replied coolly. "That was when you two and Potter got sacked from your Quidditch team. You got what you deserved, and if you just touch me now, you'll get a much, much worse punishment." 

"Whaaat?" Fred said sardonically. "There's no Umbridge anymore to chuck us out of any team. What do we have to lose?" 

Draco folded his arms and looked at them superciliously. "You don't want to know, believe me. And if you don't want to lose anything, let me get to Ginny." 

"Hah, as if I was scared of you!" George snapped. 

"What's going on here?" Mrs Weasley descended the stairs with a strict expression. When she spotted Draco, her face turned even stonier. "What do you want here, Mr Malfoy?" 

"To see my wife, dear mother-in-law," Draco said, enjoying the way she winced at the 'mother-in-law' part. 

"I'm sorry, but she doesn't wish to see anyone. Not even me," Molly shook her head. 

"Oh, you can be sure she'd like to see _me_," Malfoy said. "I'm her beloved husband, after all." 

"The day when you're her _beloved_, will be the day when Dementors start kissing each other," Fred murmured. 

"Oh, is that so, Weasley?" 

"Shut up, Malfoy, or…" 

They never knew what George wanted to say, for Ron Apparated into the kitchen with a crestfallen expression. 

"Told Hagrid," he sighed, then looked around. "What's this jerk doing here?" he pointed at Malfoy. 

"I've come to see my wife, Weasel. Is it forbidden?" 

"She doesn't wish to see anyone, especially not you," came Hermione's voice from upstairs. "Anyway, I've given her a sedative potion; she'll sleep for at least a day." 

"Yeah, so clear out, Malfoy!" added Ron. 

"I'll _clear out;_ when I've told you what I wanted," Draco replied. 

"We're not interested in anything you want to say!" declared Fred. 

"Not even in how the Minister wishes to deal with the press?" 

"The press? What'd you mean by that?" George frowned. 

"You can't be this thick, Weasley," Malfoy smirked. "Shacklebolt plans a press conference in which he's going to announce Potter's death. I just wanted to tell you what he's going to tell the press so that you wouldn't accidentally tell anyone the opposite." 

"Why?" Ron demanded. "What's he going to tell the press?" 

"I take he won't mention Ginny's involvement, or am I wrong?" asked Hermione. 

"You've always been the only one to have brains, Granger," said Draco. "Yeah, that's it, Shacklebolt's made up a story about Potter dying in a secret Ministry mission – so to say: dying like a _hero_… leaving out the unpleasant details of him eloping with my wife and being wanted by the Greek Magical Law Enforcement for murder." 

"Murder???" all the Weasleys plus Hermione gasped. 

"Oh, yeah, you didn't know that, did you?" Malfoy seemed to enjoying their shock. "Potter killed some Sicilian bloke two weeks ago, that's why the Greek Aurors were after him. He died in a fight with his pursuers… he was on the run, he died as a fugitive, a criminal…" the Weasleys' complexions were steadily turning redder and redder. "However, the Minister wants everyone to remember him as a hero, to make sure that neither his reputation, nor that of the Malfoy and Weasley families will be tarnished. So try and keep your big mouths shut about the real events. Potter never killed anyone. He has a damn big bright halo over his head and is playing the lute up in heaven." Malfoy's voice was extremely sarcastic. "Also Ginny never left England, she has always been totally faithful to me." 

"And what about the Greek Magical Law Enforcement?" Hermione asked glumly. "What if they get the _Daily Prophet _for a bit of language-studying and see an article in it, saying that Harry died… a hero? Won't they disclose that he was actually wanted?" 

"Not likely, Granger," Draco shook his blond head. "The Greek Aurors knew Potter by the pseudonym Dudley Dursley. They have absolutely no idea that it was the Great Harry Potter whom they saw die. Ah, speaking of greatness, Auror Tonks suggested the Minister should come up with some memorial ceremony for Potter. I don't know yet what it'll be – not that I care, either – but he'll talk about it in the press conference. I just though you ought to know. Well then, if Ginny's asleep, I can't see why I'd want to stay here any longer." 

"We're heartbroken, aren't we, boys?" Fred smirked. "Off you go, Malfoy!" 

* * * * * 

"Well, I think this must be it," Lily said, stopping in front of a gate that was overgrown with bindweed. A white board over the gate bore the legend: '_Elysium Kindergarten_'. 

Harry peeked into the garden to see a number of children from three to six years old playing. Some of them were watching little handmade ships sailing on a nearby creek, others were chasing each other with cheerful yelps, while others yet were sitting on the grass, holding what seemed to be dolls. A couple of children were passing a sky blue ball to each other (it seemed that Hades didn't want the kids to play with skulls) – one of them hurled the ball high into the air, so that the others wouldn't be able to catch it. The ball fell back into the grass and started rolling down a small slope towards the gate. A little girl ran after it, squealing with delight as she chased the naughty blue ball that just wouldn't stop. "Got you!" she shouted and jumped forward, falling prone onto the ground, but finally holding the ball in her tiny hands. 

As though she hadn't hit her knees at all, she jumped up to rejoin her mates, but as she lifted her head, she found herself facing the gate and facing… 

"Daddy!" she shouted and dropped the ball, totally forgetting about her game. 

"Daffy…" Harry whispered, then wrenched open the gate and crouched down to gather his daughter into his arms. "Oh, my little angel… I've missed you so much!" 

"Is that why you've come here, too?" she asked, her huge green eyes sparkling with happiness. 

"Well…" 

"I'm so happy you've come, Daddy! This is such a nice place, you'll love it too! I like it very much, the only thing I didn't like is that Mummy and you haven't come here too. Will Mummy also come? When will she come? Will you both stay? Or will you take me back to the Circle?" 

It became obvious to Harry that his daughter was unaware of having died. Obviously she just thought that she had been sent to kindergarten and her parents would take her away from here any moment. 

"No, dearest, Mummy won't come… at least not for a while." 

"Why noooot?" Daphne pouted. 

"Because…" Harry almost said 'she's not dead yet', but he suddenly realised that he shouldn't ruin his daughter's illusionary world. "She's very busy, you know. She'd like to come, because she also misses you terribly, but she just can't. That's why she sent me to you." 

"And why can't you just take me back?" 

"Didn't you just say you loved being here?" Harry asked. 

"Yeah, I do, but it's still better being with you and Mum," the little girl shrugged. 

"Hey, Daf, are you coming?" a blonde girl shouted. She looked one or two years older than Daphne, so Harry thought she must have died at the age of five or six. 

"No, I'm with my Daddy now!" Daphne shouted back. 

"Your dad?" the blonde girl's eyes widened and she ran up to them. "You mean… _Harry Potter_?" 

Harry raised an eyebrow at his daughter. "Do people here know who I am?" 

"Of course they do," Daffy nodded eagerly. "I told them all that my daddy was Harry Potter! And most of them were very envious!" 

Harry had to hide a smile. 

"Does this mean, Mr Potter, that you're also dead?" asked the blonde girl. 

"Er… no," Harry shook his head. 

"Why would he be dead?" Daphne knitted her eyebrows. 

The blonde girl paled and Harry realised that she must have been told not to tell Daffy that this place was the underworld. She had obviously forgotten to keep her mouth shut and accidentally let it slip. 

"Daffy dear, let's talk, shall we?" Harry scooped his daughter up. 

"Hey, what do you think you're doing with that child?" came the angry voice of Brünhilda, the kindergarten teacher. She was a squat, very blonde young woman, giving the impression that she was either from a German speaking country or from one of the Scandinavian ones. She had a friendly face, but now she looked like a mother tiger trying to defend her cub. "I'm waiting." 

"I'm this child's father and I have every right to take her with me," Harry replied. 

"Her father?" Brünhilda gaped at him. "You mean… _Harry Potter_?" 

"Yeah," nodded Harry, feeling slightly uneasy. It seemed that he'd have to endure people staring at him even in the underworld. 

"But… but your scar?" stuttered the kindergarten teacher, gawping at his forehead. 

"Hidden," he shrugged. 

"And… who are they?" Brünhilda pointed at three other people standing behind Harry. 

"My parents and my godfather." 

"Your… parents?" little Daphne gasped. "But… they're dead, Dad! You said they died looong ago!" 

"I'm sorry, Mr Potter," said Brünhilda. "We just didn't feel it appropriate to tell her that she… well, she's just four years old and she only came here two weeks ago… we didn't want to shock the poor little thing. I fear you will have to tell her." 

"Right-" Harry nodded. "I'm taking her with me, then, Miss…" 

"Krüger," beamed the kindergarten teacher. "Take care of her, Mr Potter." 

"I will," smiled Harry and turned to leave, but she called after him: 

"Oh, and Mr Potter?" 

"Yes?" 

"How did you die?" 

"Fell through the Styx," the young wizard replied. "But I haven't died, Miss Krüger." 

With that he left, his parents and Sirius in his wake. 

Brünhilda followed him with her eyes, feeling slightly confused. 

"Who was that?" asked another kindergarten teacher who had just emerged from behind a lilac bush. "He seemed familiar to me." 

"Harry Potter," replied Brünhilda. 

"That means he died?" breathed her friend, her complexion turning as white as a sheet. 

"Actually he says he hasn't died… he says he just fell through the Styx," Miss Krüger shrugged. 

"Thanks heaven," sighed her friend, whose pale face enhanced the beauty of her golden-red, curly hair. 

"Do you know him?" Brünhilda arched an eyebrow at her. 

"We've met… sort of," her friend replied quietly and gazed after Harry's receding figure. 

* * * * * 

"Er… well, so... the Time Freezing Charm… well, it's a sort of- it's a thingie with which one can… freeze time?" 

"Enough of this!" Voldemort snapped, his red eyes sending fire-bolts at Goyle. "Haven't you read the set books?" 

"Please, don't be mad at me, my lord, I tried… I swear I tried, but you know I'm quite a slow reader…" muttered Goyle, staring at his feet. 

"Which of the set books have you at least started to read?" demanded the Dark Lord. 

"Er… E_xtremely Evil Things for Everybody?_" 

"Just to inform you, its proper title is _Extreme Evilness for Everyone_! Have you at least taken that book into your hand?" asked Voldemort. 

"Yes, I have!" nodded Goyle vigorously. "It has a very nice cover with cute little serpents, my lord!" 

"I'm surrounded by idiots," Voldemort rolled his eyes as Bellatrix entered his chamber with an extremely satisfied expression on her face. 

"My Lord," she bowed slightly, "I've brought you something that will make you very, very happy." 

"What is it, Bella?" 

The female Death Eater handed him the _Daily Prophet _of 2nd September. The headline said: THE BOY WHO LIVED HAS PASSED AWAY 

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" Voldemort's mouth tucked into a smirk. His smirk widened and widened as he continued reading through the article. "_Mr Draco Malfoy, eye-witness of the tragic events expressed his deepest regret at Mr Potter's early death. 'He was so young and brave- I admit we have never been on the best terms with each other, but I feel it would be some sort of a sacrilege to keep silent about his wonderful deeds- he died a real hero, on a secret mission against the Dark Side. I only happened to be unfortunate enough to be near him when it happened- but then again, I was fortunate enough to see it and be able to recount it to you'-"_ Voldemort read out the second paragraph of the article. "Interesting, very interesting... I believe the Malfoy boy's gone mad to talk about Potter like that…" He kept reading. "_…and, as a tribute to the great Mr Potter's memory, the Ministry of Magic has decided to erect a statue of him at the place where he – according to his best friends – had always been happy: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Headmistress McGonagall has given us her consent to erect the statue near the Quidditch pitch, where Mr Potter played Seeker for the house team of Gryffindor. The inauguration of the Potter Memorial will take place at noon, 10th September. All those who have known, liked, or even revered the Boy Who Lived, are welcome to the ceremony_… blah-blah-blah…" Voldemort looked up from the newspaper. 

"Well, what do you think, my Lord?" said Bellatrix. 

Voldemort leaned back into his armchair, a diabolic grin on his face. "This means the only person who could ever kill me is dead. Now he can surely not prevent me from becoming immortal." 

"Does this mean we no longer need the child?" guessed Goyle. 

"You idiot!" snapped the Dark Lord. "Of course we still need the child!" 

"But… boss… I mean, my Lord… haven't we just kept her to blackmail Potter?" 

"Get out, Goyle!" Voldemort pointed at the door. 

"But…" 

"I said get out!" 

"Okay, okay…" the bulky Death Eater backed out of the room. 

"Arghhh. I'm really surrounded by idiots," sighed Voldemort. "I wonder what he has been doing whenever we did the ritual on the child…" 

"Probably daydreaming of huge, juicy beefsteaks?" Bellatrix suggested. 

"Whatever," the Dark Lord waved. "The only thing that matters is that I still need Amrita. Even with Potter dead." His face turned extremely satisfied again. "I love the sound of _Potter dead_. Music to my ears…" 

"What about the Papafotiu boy now, My Lord?" enquired Mrs Lestrange. 

"Carry on looking for him, of course. Even if Potter can no longer kill me, I could still die of age! Brrr…" he shuddered at the thought. "I want to triumph over age, triumph over death… and I need that bloody parchment for it!" 

"Certainly, my Lord," nodded the woman. "What do you think about throwing a party now?" 

"A party?" Voldemort blinked, as though he wasn't sure he'd heard her well. 

"Yeah… a party only for your faithful Death Eaters, of course. I'm sure they'd love to celebrate Potter's death together with you." 

"Hmmmm, yes, that's possible…" the Dark Lord said contemplatively. "But you know, I have another idea for having fun." 

Bellatrix examined her master's features and saw devilish delight on them. "Judging by your expression, my Lord, it must be something really wicked." 

"You can count on that, Bella. You can count on that…" 

* * * * * 

"They've gone off their rocker," Harry muttered, gazing at the _Daily Prophet_. "A statue… at Hogwarts…" 

"Yeah, I knew you'd find it interesting," said Persephone. When she had spotted this article in the newspaper, she immediately sent for Harry who had been training on the Quidditch pitch for the great match that was to take place the next day. 

"This means they all think I'm dead… and what's that rubbish about Malfoy praising me like that? Has he gone totally mad? Perhaps those Aurors hit him very badly on the head…" 

"This seems rather fishy to me, son," said James, who had also left the pitch, curious what the Queen of the Underworld had to say to Harry. Godric had been livid, of course, shouting that they needed to train if they wanted to have a chance against the foul team of Tartarus, but James had only waved indignantly and told him 'calm down, Ricky, we won't play any better tomorrow if we tire ourselves out today…' 

Strangely Beater Julius Ceasar agreed with him, adding that giving the team too much of a workout could also ruin the team spirit and would result in another dreadful defeat. 

'Team spirit? Have you turned into a PR manager?' Sirius had joked while the other Beater, Alcibiades nodded his head, his blond locks swaying around it in the morning breeze. 

'Right there you are, Julius, old mate, it wouldn't do us any good if we overworked…' 

'Afraid of looking worn tomorrow, Alci?' Sirius had told the blond Beater who had pulled a mirror out of his toga and was carefully examining his visage. Harry had had to suppress a fit of laughter – this Alcibiades, who had once been a great commander of the Athenian army but a terrible buffoon when it came to clothing, strongly reminded him of one Gilderoy Lockhart. Fortunately he didn't have peacock feather quills… Harry was sure, however, that both Alcibiades and Gilderoy would turn green with envy if they got to know that he, Harry, was going to have a statue soon. 

Now, having read the article, his heart ached at the thought of his best friends and Ginny mourning, believing him to be dead while he was very much alive and thoroughly enjoying his stay in the netherworld so far. He had also managed to explain the predicament to his daughter who, despite her four years, turned out to be clever enough to understand and accept things. However, she still missed her mother. Harry also wondered what Phaedra could be doing now, but not even in his wildest dreams would he have thought that his wife would seek consolation in Draco Malfoy's arms… 

He gave the newspaper back to Persephone and headed back to the pitch with his father to continue their training. The previous day he had met the team of Tartarus that had booked the pitch for the afternoon and Harry immediately understood why everyone in Elysium hated them. For once, they were the most unsympathetic group of people he had ever met, and the snide remarks they shouted at the team-members of Elysium were nastier than anything the Slytherins had ever made up, _Weasley is our King_ included. 

The Tartarus Chaser Rasputin had claimed it to be unfair that a living person was playing on Elysium's team and had gone with Salazar Slytherin to Hades to demand that Harry be banned from playing. They had got just even angrier with Harry when Hades laughed at them and sent them to hell. 'We're there already, dupe,' Salazar had said through gritted teeth and decided to get young Potter out of Elysium's team, no matter what means they'd have to resort to. The only problem was that if they killed Harry, then they'd lose their grounds for complaint that a living person shouldn't be allowed to play and then he'd also remain here in the Underworld forever to play against them… They needed to think up something devious. 'A nasty injury will do, Rasputin,' Slytherin had whispered to his friend as they left Hades' palace. 

**A/N2: **next chapter: Quidditch match and secrets revealed. Stay tuned. 

_TrixieFirecracker_: no, Snape isn't dead and Krum is alive too. So is Lockhart. Sorry, but there won't be any sequel to this fic :( You asked some questions that I cannot answer yet, sorry. 

_arios_: what Star Wars thingie do you refer to? I don't remember, though it's possible that it was there. 

_Wood's secret lover_: yes, you were right, ffnet made one dot out of the three dots. Yeah, Hightower comes from Police Academy . Yep, Remus/Tonks were shagging, and no, Linda isn't playing Quidditch. Now you can guess what she's doing in the underworld. Btw, just realised that you were Pace on deviantart!!! :D 

_Mistri, Tonks' Admirer_: nope, Oliver isn't related to Godric :) 

_Requiem to a Dream_: you wrote: _what harry did to poor hedwig was mean. i cant imagine him ever doing that under normal circumstances. _I agree, but he wasn't under normal circumstances when he did that. I didn't find the Sally Lockhart books hard to follow. Actually I'm reading an aside-book to that series right now, it's called The Tin Princess and has Jim from the Sally series as one of the main characters (I luv Jim a lot!) 

_Paige_: you like the Parent Trap? One of my fav movies ever! So funny! :D I love the way Sharon and Susan make an idiot of - er, Becky is her name, or what? The chick their father wants to marry? 

_hypnotic-bab_e: that bug charm won't be important any longer, since the Aurors only needed it to catch "Dudley Dursley", and now they think that "Dudley" is dead. 

_xxGinnyxx_: a boy. 

_kneh13_: Ginny is pregnant now, and no, it wasn't Draco's fault that he couldn't impregnate her - it was because Ginny had had this illness, but she got cured of it in the pond in the Row of Gods. 

_C-chan1_: read my comment at the top of the page, and you'll see that the last chapter wasn't rushed but ffnet screwed it up. I looked up 'git' in my Longman dictionary, and it says that you should pronounce it as git, so g is like the g in the word 'game' and i is like the i in the word 'ink'. You wrote: _Is that because one too many witches and wizards apparated out without paying their bill?_ Hm, yeah, very likely! Nope, never read anything from C. S. Lewis. In this fic Harry isn't related to Gryffindor - or even if he is, I won't mention it. I don't like Monty Python, sorry. Thanks for the Valentine wish! Neville? Hm, I never considered him as cute before... 

_OfTheWest_: both Tonks and Ginny will find out about their pregnancies in chapter 21. (and you have a good memory :) 

_Noemi_: I'm writing this in Hungarian, like you wrote in your review: igen, sajna Ginny gyereke akkor születik meg, amikor Harry még nem jött vissza. Ezt lécci ne terjeszd, hadd akadjanak ki a szegény olvasók! ;) És köszönöm a tapintatodat, épp elég dühös voltam, amikor Mistri bedobta a groupomban, hogy pontosan mit is jelent az Amrita. Legszívesebben megfojtottam volna ;) Pssszt! 

_Purple Star Dust_: read my comment at the top, you'll see why there were errors in the last chapter. If you fall into a river, you don't automatically die, do you? Albus is dead in this fic - he died at the end of Harry's seventh year when he tried to save Harry from Voldemort (I mentionted that in chapter 9, as far as I remember). 

_TigHan_: you wrote: _surely he gets out of there quickly_... Nope, he doesn't. You guessed right - I'm evil! You got the 'key' right :) You'll see Harry meeting lots of people in the underworld in the next chapter. 

_random_: thanks a bunch! 

_Witch of Darkness_: this story will have 31 chapters. 

_Sarahamanda_: I don't even know yet whether I'll write a new fic, but if I do, then it will surely be a H/G one again. 

_K.C. Hunter_: I hope you've healed by now. It wasn't html that messed it up, it was ffnet. The html document that is in my computer still has all three periods, but ffnet stripped them in the process of uploading. Thanks for pointing out my mistakes. Don't feel guilty about liking HDM, most people I know love it, it's just me (and my friend Michael) who think it's a sacrilege. And truth be told, it's not just that I found it a sacrilege, I didn't like Lyra's character, and if I don't like a main character, then I don't like the book itself. I only liked Pan and Will. It's 99,9% sure that there won't be a sequel to this fic, because I closed the fic so much in chapter 31 that I couldn't make up anything how to continue it. I can't make Voldie return as Harry's son again, after all ;) Outtakes? Perhaps. I just don't know yet what sort of outtakes they should be. Any ideas? 

_strawberry_: thanks, I'm glad you like my arts :) Are you the same strawberry who once reviewed this fic on SIYE? 

_carameLisSa_: Draco might have forgotten things, yeah. 

_Embyr Black_: you quit smoking! Hurray! I never even tried to smoke, it was enough for me that people arond me smoked. Yuck. 

_DarkFlower2113_: I'm glad you gave my trilogy a chance! Thanks for the appraisal, I'm quite proud of my trilogy as well, especially of Enemy which is my fav of all the fics I've ever written. Thanks for the book's title, I've put it on my 'to read' list. 

_midori_: you belong to the very few readers who don't like D/P. Ginny will still believe Harry dead when she gives birth and Draco will be aware that the kid's father is Harry. 

_Indigo Ziona_: Ginny will find out about her pregnancy in chapter 21 and Draco will unfortunately know at once who the father is. You think I write grief well? Thanks :) But I like writing happiness and fun much more! 

_Blaubaerin_: yes, Draco with his most private parts showing must be a sight ;) Oh, so you realised that when I described Herm's grandpa's death, I described that of my own grandpa, and my mum's reaction to it? Yeah, that's what I did. I think the Sally Lockhart trilogy and The Tin Princess (if that's what you meant by 'it's a quartet now'), are for people above 14-15, because they have really difficult plots sometimes. I can only recommend the trilogy, really good. 

_Tyster_: when Ginny gives birth, Harry is still 'dead'. 

_Megan_: glad to see you here. You are the umpteenth person who comes over from SIYE or schnoogle to read the fic here, because I always update here first :) 

_Kinz_: you'll see what exactly Amrita means in the next chapter. Don't worry about having filled the 30 places in your favs, I also thought that ffnet woudln't let me add more than 30, but it let me when I tried, so you can add me and ffnet will allow it. I've seen people who have over 40 persons/fics on their fav list, not only 30. I myself have over 30 fics on my fav fics list. 

_Pyro-Angel3_: thank you very much :D 

_Chelsea of the Moor_: I have been called Queen of different things, but never dramatic irony. That's something new :) 

_Elfy19_: Harry won't meet the person he killed, or even if he did, I won't show it. 

_*katie_: there will be one wedding in this fic, only one. You'll get to know the baby's name in chapter 30, no sooner ;) 

_wackofromva_: you have a really pretty name, Rhea! Have you read my trilogy here on ffnet? The third one has a Rhea Skeeter in it, LOL :) 

_kitkat_: Cedric _will_ tell Ginny, but she won't believe him :( 

_Tap Dancing Widow_: no, Daphne won't make Harry hesitant to leave. 

_Inken_: true that they hadn't seen Harry for years, but they must have been hoping to get him back, and getting to know that he died somehow finalised it for them - made them realise that they had to give up hope on ever seeing him again. 

_thumper_: yes, you indeed gave me a big enough head, and thanks for that! :D 

_Katrina Littlebird_: yes, that's why Ginny is pregnant. Phaedra? Hm... No, you didn't miss Daphne, she only turned up in this chapter :) 

_hi-voltage_: get on with what? 

_maureen_: Ginny will only find out about her pregnancy in chapter 21. You have creative writing class - and wrote about my cliffies? *blushes* I never had such a class, what do you learn in it? I expect creative writing, but can that be LEARNED? Just wondering... 

_Elizabeth Darcy_: yeah, one of the two ladies might help Harry... can't tell you more yet ;) 

Also thanks to: _Myr Halcyon, torifire126, Black Ice, Houou Kazoku-Kaga, Alexander Phoenix, jordy-n-peyts mama, TheSilverLady, dementorchic, Written in Stars, rebkos, iNiGmA, Courtney, moony*padfoot, Bladefanatic, Kit Clouckicker, goldenstar555, apple-pie, ruffled owl, MilesFromNormal, soccerstarz, PrincessGinny, angeleyes53_


	19. Veni, Vidi, Vici

**Disclaimer:** the same as in the prologue + the cheerleader song in this chapter comes from Disney's Aladdin and is therefore the property of Walt Disney Pictures. 

**A/N**: sorry that I haven't updated earlier, but I didn't want to update as long as ffnet wasn't working perfectly. I think the search _still_ isn't working, but ffnet promised that it would tomorrow. 

This is one of my fav chapters, hope you like it too :)   
  


**Chapter 19**

**Veni, vidi, vici**

  


_"Winning isn't the most important thing – it's the only thing."_   
(Vince Lombardi)   
  


"I've come to reclaim my wife," Draco told the Weasleys at the Burrow. 

"To_ reclaim_ her?" Fred raised an eyebrow. "What sort of rubbish is that? She goes with you if she feels like it. If she doesn't, then she stays. It's her choice." 

"Yeah, yeah, hers, but I still want to talk to her," Draco insisted. 

"All right," Mrs Weasley sighed, reluctant to let her 'son-in-law' have access to her daughter. "But be prepared to find that she's changed. Perhaps she's changed so much that you won't even want her back…" 

"That's out of the question, dear mother-in-law." Malfoy smirked and climbed the stairs to Ginny's room. "Ginny! It's me, your husband!" 

No one answered from inside, and no movement could be heard. 

"I know you're in there, open up!" 

Silence. 

"Ginny… pleeease, open up!" said Draco with a suffering expression – obviously it was a torment for him to utter the word 'please'. 

Still no one answered. 

"At least say something! Send me to hell, but say something! Ginny… hello? Are you still alive?" 

"It's no use, Mr Malfoy." Molly shook her head, joining him in front of her daughter's door. "Ginny dear," she said in a soft voice, "let us in, please. Don't play the sulky little girl…" 

"I'm not sulky," replied a voice as silent as a whisper and the door opened to reveal a dark figure. Neither Molly nor Draco managed to make out Ginny's features, for all the curtains in her room had been pulled over the windows to keep the light out of the room. 

"May I?" asked Draco, feeling more and more awkward with every passing second. He wasn't the type of man who'd beseech anyone to let him in. 

Ginny stepped back and made a swishing movement with her hand, indicating that he might enter. Draco cast a sideways glance at Mrs Weasley, who gave him a little smile. It was the very first time that Molly had smiled at him, Draco noted to himself. 

He entered the room and his mother-in-law tactfully closed the door behind him. In fact, Molly would have rather stayed and supervised their meeting, but she knew well enough that even if Malfoy had come into the family by stealth and blackmail, she had to give him a chance to make things up to her daughter; and perhaps this was the time for it. She was sure she'd ever grow to like Draco, she'd never forget Arthur's torturing… but then again, it had been done by Lucius, not Draco, and why punish the son for the deeds of his father? Molly just couldn't come to terms with her feelings towards Draco – she loathed him, but something deep inside her told her that perhaps, just perhaps, he wasn't as bad as she thought him to be – so why not give him a chance to prove himself? 

She descended the stairs and took her place at the kitchen table, facing her glum-looking twin sons. 

"You shouldn't have left them alone, Mum," said George, and Fred nodded. 

"Perhaps I shouldn't have…" Molly sighed, propping her head in her palms, gazing at the table. "But even he deserves a second chance…" 

"A_ second_ chance?" Fred snorted. "He's on his… um… ninety-ninth already?"   
  


* * * * * 

"Ginny?" 

"What?" 

"Why is it so dark here?" 

"Because the curtains are drawn." 

"I know that, but _why_ are the curtains drawn?" 

"Because I felt like drawing them." 

"May I pull them back… just a little bit?" 

"If you want to…" 

Draco pulled one of the curtains back just enough to let a thin stripe of light into the room that fell on Ginny's face. 

Draco gasped. 

This wasn't Ginny. Couldn't be Ginny! Not his pretty, sexy, wildcat-like Ginny! 

This was a Ginny so pale that Snow White would have died of jealousy. Her eyes had sunk into her skull, her cheekbones stood out in an almost frightening way, her hair was dishevelled and matted and she rather resembled a banshee. 

"Oh, Ginny…" he breathed, automatically reaching out to caress her face, but she pulled away. Her gesture of rejection made him come to his senses. _What was I thinking? Trying to console her? Why should I? She's suffering because of another man! A man with whom she'd eloped, with whom she might easily have cheated on me! Okay, Potter said they hadn't done it, but… he never said they hadn't snogged at all! _That's_ cheating on me, too!_

"So." He stepped back too, examining her in an indifferent way. "Will you ever come out of this room or are you going to bury yourself alive in here? And all this because of dratted Potter?" 

_Whack._

Ginny slapped him hard across the face. 

"Oh, is it so hard to accept the truth?" 

"What truth? That he died?" she hissed. 

"Not exactly… the truth that he was a low-down scumbag, a dirty seducer, not to mention a murderer." 

"Wouldn't you also have killed the murderer of your child?" she demanded in a raspy voice. 

"I wouldn't know, would I? I'll never have a child… at least not from my legally wedded wife," he replied sarcastically. 

Ginny shot him a contemptuous look and turned away. "I've told you: go and shag anyone you want, I don't care if you have a dozen illegitimate children, as long as I don't have to act as their mother. But perhaps…" She turned around. "Perhaps _you_ can't father a child, either." 

"We'll see," Draco said coldly. "Anyway, I've come to take you with me." 

"Oh, is that so?" She let out a mirthless laugh. "And what if I don't want to go? Will you cut Dad's hair?" 

"Don't joke about something like this, Virginia!" 

"Then don't expect me to go with you! The only way you can drag me out of this house is if you kill me first!" 

"So, you won't leave with your husband, but you willingly left with your lover!" 

"What if I did?" she shouted, stamping her foot. 

"You could have brought shame on the whole family, didn't you realise that? Had the Minister not left you out of the story of Potter's death, everyone would now be talking about you as a slut!" 

"What do I care what they say about me?" 

"Then at least care for your family! Care for the name Malfoy!" 

"I don't care a damn about a name thrust upon me by force!" she snapped, her pale complexion not so pale anymore, but red with anger. She was trembling with fury, gasping for breath. In the past few days she had become unaccustomed to speaking, and shouting drained her of her energy in no time. 

"Right then, Virginia. I'll come back when you're in a bit clearer state of mind," said Draco. "And don't think I've given up on you. You're my wife and you'll continue being so, with all the obligations of a wife…"   
Instead of replying, Ginny spat in his face. 

"Good aim," Draco grimaced, wiping his cheek. "Calm down, Ginny, and start eating something. A Mrs Malfoy can't look like a living skeleton. What would people say?" 

He managed to slam the door shut behind him just in time, so the five inches thick _Encyclopaedia of Wizarding Sports _banged into the closed door. 

"Well?" Molly gave him a questioning look. 

"She's a little nervous." Draco shrugged. "I'll come back later." 

"You don't need to, you know…" Fred said hopefully. 

Draco gave him a nasty look and Apparated away.   
  


* * * * * 

"Are you all right, Harry?" James asked, seeing that his son had turned slightly paler than usual. 

"Yeah, I s'pose so." Harry nodded, but he had to admit to himself that he was indeed feeling a bit nervous – about just as nervous as he had felt before the Quidditch Final in his third year at Hogwarts. Quidditch was just Quidditch, but here in the Underworld it was slightly different: he was playing on a team full of dead people, against a team also full of dead people. Then there was the skull-like Quaffle and the real Golden Snidget, and he had difficulty getting used to them. Also, on normal Quidditch pitches the hoops weren't blazing with a mysterious blue fire, while the hoops here most definitely were – Harry didn't know why, perhaps to discourage the Chasers or just to add to the image of the Underworld. If the latter was true, then the Underworld must have a very twisted PR manager… 

The players of Tartarus were leering at him as he and his team mates entered the stadium with their _StyxSweeper 2003 _broomsticks on their shoulders. Harry felt more and more uneasy by the second. Not that he was afraid of them… he'd just never played against dead people… 

Fortunately he managed to forget about the uneasy feeling when he heard a bunch of female spectators chanting on the stands with pompoms in their hands:   


_Everything about the man just plain impresses_   
_He's a winner, he's a whiz, a wonder!_   
_He's about to pull my heart asunder!_   
_And I absolutely love the way he dresses!_   


Harry didn't even need to look around and see who the women were singing about – Alcibiades was waving at them with a Gilderoyishly wide smile, sweeping his curly, golden locks out of his bright blue eyes. 

Harry looked at Sirius, who was rolling his eyes, then at his mother who was eyeing the cheerleaders with an expression 'you've-gone-off-your-rocker-girls'. James just shrugged and grinned at Harry. "This is a common thing before the matches," he told his son. "Alci always gets this much attention. I bet it's unusual for you to see someone having so many groupies…" 

"No, in fact it isn't." Harry shook his head. "Not when you know Gilderoy Lockhart." 

"Lockhart? Hmm… I think I remember him… he was an attention-seeking jerk back at school. He was two years above us, in the same year as Lucius Malfoy. He was also a Slytherin, but as far as I know, the two of them loathed each other. I think they were jealous of each other's looks, trying to beat the other in the Blondest Hair Contest." 

Harry chuckled as they reached the middle of the pitch where Hades (playing the role of referee) was standing with the Quaffle in his hands. 

The team of Elysium lined up, facing that of Tartarus to see many of its players baring their teeth and cracking their knuckles. They didn't look nearly as menacing as Crabbe and Goyle had, for none of them was as burly as the two Slytherin boys.   
Salazar Slytherin sent the Beaters (Cesare and Lucretia Borgia) a meaningful look, then glanced at Harry. Godric Gryffindor caught his old enemy's glance and edged to Harry so that he could whisper to him: 

"Potter, watch out for the Borgia. I think they'll be aiming for you. Remember: you can _still_ die." 

"Okay, I'll keep my eyes open." Harry nodded, squinting at the Tartarus Beaters who were indeed sizing him up rather darkly. 

"Daddy!" little Daphne was waving at him from the stands, a flag of Elysium in her hand. The flag was sky blue with a nice yellow sun on it. Harry waved back at his daughter, then turned to see the Tartarus stands and a sea of unsympathetic people waving dark banners with a grey cloud and a skull on it. If it weren't for the cloud, Harry would have thought they were pirates. One of them in the front row seemed very familiar to Harry: blond hair, a nasty-stuck-up expression… "Why, isn't that Lucius Malfoy?" 

"Yep, that's him," James said sourly. "He always comes to the matches and keeps giving us those superior looks of his when we lose the game…" 

"Some people never change, do they?" remarked Harry, and kept looking at the Tartarus stands. As he was skimming the supporters of the opposing team, his glance shifted over a squat person with huge, bulging eyes. He immediately directed his eyes back to that figure. 

"I've found another acquaintance," he murmured to his father while Hades announced the beginning of the 74th Quidditch match in the Underworld's history. As Harry had heard from his parents, Elysium had only won 6 of all the previous 73 matches, and it hadn't won a match for 246 years. 

"Who?" James asked distractedly, exchanging dark glances with Rasputin who had the bad habit of tailing him at every match. 

"Dolores Umbridge." 

"And who's that?" asked his father, mounting his broom. 

"I'll introduce her to you. You'll love her." Harry grinned, pleased to see that the old toad had landed in Tartarus after she'd died. 

"Aaaaand they're off!" announced the commentator. "Chaser Grindelwald passes to Rasputin, he tries to pass to Henry VIII, but James Potter intercepts, passes to Lily Potter, who passes to Si… well, the Quaffle's back in Grindelwald's possession, he   
scores… 10-0 to Tartarus!" 

The Tartarus stands roared with satisfaction. 

"The Quaffle's again in Lily Potter's possession, passes to Sirius Black, Black scores… no, he doesn't score, Slytherin saves." 

After fifteen minutes Tartarus was leading 90-20, and Harry was getting desperate to catch the Golden Snidget. However, Brutus, the other team's Seeker was just as desperate to catch it and wouldn't leave Harry alone, kept following him all around the pitch. 

Alcibiades, to Harry's surprise turned out to be a really talented player – something that Gilderoy Lockhart couldn't have said about himself. Well, he _had_ said it about himself, but Harry didn't believe him. 

As he watched Alcibiades sending a boulder-Bludger towards Henry VIII, he found it hard to imagine that such a wonderful Beater had ever done such horrible things as cutting his dog's tail only to get attention, but according to Sirius it had been true. For the time being Harry didn't really care what a stupid, attention-seeking git this Alcibiades was, as long as he played this well. 

However, no matter how well Alcibiades played, no matter how well his parents and Sirius handled the Quaffles, and no matter how hard Godric tried to defend the blazing hoops, Elysium was doing quite poorly compared to Tartarus. But then again, Elysium was at least playing fair, while the members of the Tartarus team were playing dirty – cobbing, stooging and stuff like that were pretty common in their playing tactics. 

Apparently Hades had been trying to put an end to cheating, but his efforts proved to be futile. He couldn't punish the players of Tartarus, could he? What sort of punishment could he have made up for them? Send them to hell? They were there already – Tartarus was definitely like hell. There weren't any cauldrons with hot water boiling in them, no devil kept cooking those who got there, but it was still a place so dreary, so dull and dark that one couldn't do anything else there but suffer. Once Hades had decided to make the Tartarus players help the Danaides filling their leaky barrels, but not even this punishment managed to deter them from cheating. 

Brutus was still tailing Harry, making sure he'd see at once if Harry dived for the Snidget. In order to try and shake his unwanted follower off, Harry was making loop-the-loops, swerving, diving, doing all sorts of acrobatic stuff that would have made Draco Malfoy say 'practicing for the ballet, Potter?'. However, Brutus seemed exceptionally good in mimicking Harry's moves and try as he might, Harry didn't manage to shake him off. 

Meanwhile, Elysium had managed to score once more, but Tartarus had done twice, so the score was 110:30 to Tartarus.   
For a while Harry didn't notice that the two Tartarus Beaters were deliberately aiming for him, but when he had to jerk his broom out of the way of the eleventh Bludger, he started to suspect that Godric had been right and Tartarus had indeed decided to kill him - or rather disable him. 

Someone on the opposing team must have done something illegal again, for the Elysium stands echoed with the booing and hissing of the outraged spectators. Harry was too occupied with trying to shake both Brutus and the two Borgias off to see what had happened. He ducked a Bludger sent at him by Lucretia Borgia, while Brutus, who was too absorbed in tailing him to react quickly enough, got the Bludger into his face. Harry paused only for a second to watch Brutus' nose bleed, but that single second was enough for Cesare Borgia to beat the other boulder-Bludger right into Harry's back. 

Harry felt something weird, as if something had hit him, then saw a granite boulder bounce off him, and came to the conclusion that he must have been hit by it. However, he didn't feel any sort of pain. It crossed his mind that perhaps his backbone had snapped and that was why he didn't feel pain, but then he realised that if his spine had broken, he wouldn't still be able to sit upright on his broom. Tentatively he tried to move his hand – he managed it without any difficulty. He shifted a bit on his broom to check whether he could properly move his legs, and they also seemed to be fully operational. 

_What had happened, then?_ he wondered. He remembered having got a Bludger in the back in his fifth year at Hogwarts -, in the match against Slytherin -, and that had caused him pain, while this one didn't. All he had felt when the boulder collided with his back was some sort of soft thump, nothing else. 

Confused he looked around to see that Brutus was still cradling his bleeding nose and whimpering something about missing teeth. At that moment something caught Harry's eye. A little, round thing was flying around the Elysium goalposts in a rather familiar way – exactly the way he'd always seen the Snitch fly. This one, however, wasn't gold and didn't glint; it was rather something yellowish-brown with a long, narrow beak. 

"The Snidget," Harry breathed and spurred his broomstick to get there before Brutus noticed or any of the Borgias tried to disable him again. 

"Grindelwald scores, 130:30, it seems today isn't the day for Elysium… again," boomed the commentator's voice throughout the stadium, "but wait! Isn't that the Potter boy going for the Snidget? Holy Hades, he catches it! Ladies and gents, after 246 years, Elysium wins the match!" 

The roar in the Elysium stands was almost ear-splitting. Harry had never heard any of the school teams cheer like this, not even Ireland's supporters in the Quidditch World Cup. Elysium flags with their happy little suns were waving frantically and hats of all shapes and colours were thrown into the air. 

"You did it! You did it, son!" James hugged Harry before he could even touch down onto the grass. A moment later Lily joined them in the enthusiastic embrace, her eyes filled with the tears of joy. 

"We've come, we've seen, we've conquered!" Julius Caesar declared with a smug expression and patted Harry on the back as a sign of his respect. 

"Well done, Potter!" Godric Gryffindor beamed at him, occasionally sending triumphant grins at Salazar, who was eyeing Harry with a rather sour expression. 

"How came your Bludger didn't do him in?" Salazar whispered to the Borgias. 

"No idea." Lucretia shrugged. "My Bludger hit his backbone, I am sure it did… he should have been maimed by it…" 

"Then why _hasn't_ he been maimed?" Slytherin wondered, scratching his jaw. 

The cheering crowd broke into the pitch and swarmed around Harry, trying to touch him, trying to shake his hand or just give him an admiring smile. 

Alcibiades was eyeing his usual groupies with a slightly hurt expression, for they were now giving all their attention to Elysium's new ace Seeker. 

Harry had never in his life shaken hands with so many persons (many of whom weren't even humans but elves, goblins and centaurs – even a giant happened to give him a friendly pat on the back that made him fall forwards into a bunch of squealing witches). Trying to disentangle himself from the witches' embrace and turning his head quick enough so that their kisses would fall on his cheeks instead of their original destination – his lips –, Harry caught a glimpse of a pair of eyes gazing at him across the sea of Elysium supporters. 

His stomach gave a jolt – he knew these eyes. He couldn't have counted how many times he had felt relief wash over him whenever the serenity and peace of these eyes shone down at him, filling his heart with encouragement and the certainty that he wasn't alone… yet these had been the eyes that had been so often diverted from his face, not wanting to look at him, and making him feel more frustrated than ever… 

These were the eyes of Albus Dumbledore. 

Seeing that Harry was struggling to get free from his admirers in vain, Dumbledore stepped back. "Wait!" shouted Harry, fearing that his old headmaster would just leave, but his yell got muffled by the cheering of the crowd and the rustling of several papers held in front of him, waiting for his autograph. 

What could Harry do? He couldn't possibly cast a Repelling Charm on the crowd and he wasn't sure it'd be wise to try and Apparate anywhere here in the Underworld. He couldn't even try to flee on his broomstick, for he didn't have so much space as to mount it. He forced himself to calm down and sign everyone's sheet of paper/flags/hats/shoes, hoping beyond hope that Dumbledore wouldn't have disappeared by the time the crowd thinned. 

About two hours later the queue of people and creatures waiting for a signature thinned enough for Harry to see through it, and he was relieved to see the old wizard sitting peacefully in the first row of the stands, practically alone. In the third row there were two figures sitting in blue robes of ladies' fashion, their hoods drawn over their faces. As far as Harry could tell, they might equally have been males, for nothing of their faces could be seen. 

"Are you giving out autographs or not?" asking a simpering voice from the very end of a row of a few dozen people still waiting for his signature. 

"Professor Umbridge?" Harry raised an eyebrow at the witch standing at the end of the row, but kept signing the papers of the remaining people. When those few dozen people had received his signature and departed, Harry found himself face to face with his most hated teacher. "What a surprise, Professor Umbridge. Why would _you_ want my autograph? Aren't you supporting your own team – Tartarus?" 

"Well, you know, Harry dear, I thought it wouldn't do Tartarus any harm if I had your autograph…" Smiled Umbridge repulsively, trying to give him a puppy-stare, but all she reminded him of was a toad. "Also, who knows when will be the next time a living person turns up here… it's always wise to grab such opportunities…" 

For a moment Harry regarded her with pursed lips, thinking it'd be too nice of him to give this old hag an autograph after all she'd done to him, but his good heart got the better of him and he realised what a pitiful revenge it would be to deny her his signature. 

"All right then, but I'm _not _using your quill," he said only to make Dolores beam at him in a rather disgusting way. 

"I knew you had a great sense for humour, and I was sure you wouldn't still be harbouring grudge against me for that little joke of mine…" 

"Well, slicing my hand open at least a dozen times wasn't my idea of joke," Harry replied, scribbling his name on the sheet of paper given to him by Umbridge. "It's a wonder that I had any blood in me left after each detention…" 

"Hem-hem…" a voice interjected, and both Harry and Dolores swerved around to see Albus Dumbledore grinning at both of them. "Hello, Harry. Nice catch. I have accidentally overheard parts of your discussion and I was just wondering what you meant by it was a wonder you had any blood left after each detention… would you explain it, Dolores?" 

"Well, Albus…" Umbridge shifted uneasily. "It's like…" 

"Whenever she gave me a detention I had to do lines, and she made me write with a quill that used my own blood as ink," replied Harry. 

"WHAT?" Dumbledore gasped, and Harry had no idea why he had turned so pale. "Is this true, Dolores?" 

"Well, you see, Albus…" 

"Why didn't you tell me, or Professor McGonagall?" the one-time headmaster demanded from Harry. 

"I thought I'd seem weak if I did." The young wizard shrugged. "Also, I didn't want her," he said, glancing at his hated teacher, "to think that I was running to you to complain about little, unimportant things. I considered it as a battle of wills with Umbridge…" 

"Unimportant things?" Dumbledore's voice rose in pitch so that even Lily, James and the rest of the Elysium team, who had been chatting nearby with some spectators, started to feel interested in Harry's conversation with Albus. "You let your pride take over, Harry? You thought it was beneath your dignity to report her to us?" 

"But… why's that such a big deal?" Harry asked, not understanding. 

"Your blood, Harry! You were giving your blood into the hands of a stranger!" Dumbledore said, pointing at Umbridge. "Do you have any idea what she could have done with it?" 

"Er… no. What?" Harry asked, looking at Dolores, who had started to back away from them. 

"No, you're not going anywhere, Dolores!" boomed Albus. 

"Hah! Make me stay if you can!" she snapped. "You're just as dead as I am, and you don't have a wand either!" 

"But I do," replied Harry, drawing his wand out of the pocket of his Quidditch uniform, pointing it at her. "Come back this instant you ugly old toad." 

"I've never… never in my whole life been spoken to like that!" Umbridge sputtered. 

"Then it was high time someone talked to you like that," growled Harry. 

Her eyes on Harry's wand, Dolores approached them again, slightly trembling. "So… er… what were we talking about?" 

"How many sheets of parchment did you have to fill?" Dumbledore asked from the young wizard, but kept an eye on Umbridge to make sure she wouldn't flee. 

"No idea. A lot." Harry shrugged. "About two parchments an hour. I usually spent about five-six hours a day in detention, and I was in detention at least for three weeks, so…" 

"So, about sixty parchments." Albus drew the conclusion. "That's a lot of blood, you know." He turned to Umbridge. "What did you do with the sheets of parchment written on with Harry's blood?" 

"Well… burned them, of course," said Dolores in a slightly wavering voice. "So that you'd never have a proof of what I'd been making Harry do…" 

"Perhaps you're not aware, Dolores, but I'm a highly skilled Legilimens," said Albus calmly. "And I know you're lying. I want the truth. Don't be afraid, I can't harm you without my wand, and I don't even intend to – you're rotting in Tartarus where you belong, that's a big enough punishment for you. I also promise that Harry won't hurt you either… right, Harry?"   
Somewhat reluctantly Harry nodded. "Right." 

"There, you have it. And now, speak up, and don't leave out a single detail. What did you do with those sheets of parchment?" 

"Well… I didn't want to, Dumbledore, but I had to... My sister Maestitia got kidnapped by You-Know-Who. Of course, I knew that You-Know-Who was back, but I had to act as if he wasn't, or he would have killed my beloved sister! Fudge also knew that she had disappeared, but kept it a secret from the press, not wanting to wake their suspicion that the Dark Lord might be back… and of course Fudge didn't believe that Maestitia had been kidnapped by He Who Must Not Be Named, but still, he didn't want anyone to get suspicious… and I was afraid, I truly liked my sister, the only other person I've loved besides my Argus…" Dolores sniffed and wiped a tear off her face. "Anyway, the Dark Lord knew I was working for the Ministry and wanted me to work hard against the news spreading about his return… so I did. That's why I sent the Dementors at Potter… to silence him. I was sure that You-Know-Who would be happy with Potter getting his soul sucked out… Well, anyway, shortly before the start of term I got a letter from the Dark Lord, saying that I had to come by some of Potter's blood and do it in a way that wouldn't wake suspicion…" 

"You mean… Voldemort needed my blood?" Harry frowned. 

Dolores cringed at the name, but nodded. "He sent me this funny quill to make you use it… of course later I made Lee Jordan use it too, so that you wouldn't think I was only using it on you… you would have become suspicious." 

"Oh yeah, because cutting the words _I must not tell lies _into the back of my hand wasn't suspicious, was it?" Harry snapped, holding his right hand out of her. Some whitish lines were still visible on it, though the words were no longer decipherable. 

"Harry, calm down. Dolores, please continue," said Dumbledore. 

"Well, there's not much more to tell." Umbridge shrugged. "I kept sending the Dark Lord the letters with Potter's dried blood. No idea how he could use it once it had dried into the parchment…" 

"I trust Voldemort to know charms which can make dried blood liquid again," sighed Albus. "This fits, though…" 

"What fits?" asked Harry. 

"When you came back after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament," said the one-time headmaster, "you told me that Voldemort had used your blood to regain his body. And I felt happy about it. Victorious." 

Harry knitted his eyebrows, trying to remember. Yes, indeed, he had seen a gleam of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes and he hadn't been able to guess what it had been. "Victorious, sir?" 

"Yes, Harry…" sighed Albus. "Good old Tom might know lots of tricky Dark Arts, but it seems that at that time he wasn't aware that if a wizard uses another wizard's blood to regain or strengthen his magic powers, he so to say seals his own fate, for the blood of the 'donor' will function as a drug… and the user will be addicted to it." 

"Addicted?" Harry's eyes widened. "Voldemort became… addicted to my blood?" 

"He must have." Nodded the old wizard. "And it seems he only realised this after a while…he must have started to get weaker and weaker sometime during the summer holidays after his rebirth, and it became obvious for him that he had to act immediately. You know… if you get addicted to a drug, you'll need it to keep you going, and if you try to lay off it, you'll get the withdrawal symptoms: you'll feel dizzy, weak and you'll think you'll go mad if you can't take a new dose. Voldemort used your blood to regain his body and powers… and if he doesn't get more of it, he will lose his powers." 

"Lose his powers?" The young man gasped. "But… but he hasn't lost them!" 

"No, he hasn't, for a while your blood in his veins kept him going. When your blood had been almost totally replaced by his through the process of blood-replenishment, he looked for a new source of getting your blood and that's where Dolores came into the picture." 

"You mean," muttered Umbridge, "that You-Know-Who used the letters I sent him to get Potter's blood from them so that he wouldn't lose his powers?" 

"Yes, that's what I mean," replied Dumbledore. "I only wonder how long those blood-stocks lasted for him… they can't have lasted for seven years, for sure…What could Tom have made up to substitute for your blood?" 

"Um… I think perhaps we could tell you that," a gentle female voice spoke up behind Albus. 

Harry turned to look at the source of the voice and saw that the two figures wearing blue robes and hoods which hid their faces had joined them. 

"You? Miss…" Dumbledore began with a surprised expression. 

"…Springfield," replied the woman, lowering her hood to reveal a pretty but serious face with huge blue eyes, framed by elegantly wavy reddish blonde hair. "Adela Springfield. Perhaps you remember me, Albus?" 

"Of course I do!" Dumbledore said incredulously. "You taught Defence Against the Dark Arts when I was teaching Transfiguration. But you went missing one day… and no one ever found you." 

"Exactly." Adela nodded. "For Tom saw to it that no one would find me again." 

"Tom?" the one-time headmaster blinked. "What does he have to do with this?" 

"A lot, Albus," sighed the woman. "I am ashamed to say this, but I was his lover… and I got pregnant with his daughter." 

At his moment Harry shuddered, however, Adela continued her tale: "Tom wanted to kill me for having witnessed his killing his family, but I told him about my pregnancy and he decided not to kill me… he rather froze me in time…. for thirty-eight years." 

"Thirty-eight?" Dumbledore breathed. 

"Yes." Nodded Adela. "He must have taken me somewhere to the north, for one day he unfroze me and I woke up in some sort of an ice cave… He told me how long I had been 'sleeping', and I asked why he had decided to wake me up… And he told me. He said it had been predicted that a soon-to-be-born boy would be his undoing, and he got an idea…" 

"What sort of an idea?" enquired Dumbledore, while Harry was getting more and more nervous. 

"He said he needed my daughter… _his_ daughter… to play her off against this boy… He thought if he could live long enough to wait for our daughter to become sexually mature, then he'd… make her seduce that boy…" 

"To seduce him? Why?" asked Albus, casting a questioning glance at Harry, who looked away. 

"Because… because Tom thought that if… if this boy fathered a child by our daughter, and the child was in Tom's possession, then he'd be able to blackmail the boy with it…" Adela ran her hand nervously across her golden-red locks, "I told him it was madness and that I wasn't willing to give birth to my daughter to sentence her to such an evil, twisted life, but… Tom had his means to force me…" 

"So you gave birth to his daughter. What happened after that?" 

"He killed me, obviously. I had fulfilled my task; Tom had no more need of me. All I know of the rest of the story I know from my daughter." 

"Your daughter?" Albus' eyes shifted to the other figure who still had her hood drawn over her face. "She died, too?" 

Now Harry was also eyeing the mysterious woman next to Miss Springfield. 

"Yes, I did." She nodded and slowly, ever so slowly, lowered her hood. 

There was a sharp intake of breath, and Harry didn't even realise that it had been him who'd gasped so loudly. 

The woman was stunning: a spitting image of her mother, with the exception of her eyes, those were grey… Tom's eyes. Her beautiful, wavy hair was tied in a ponytail and it fell partly onto her shoulders. Her face was white and her expression frightened. She glanced at Harry, then immediately looked away, as if fearing that he'd hurt her. 

"So…" Harry spoke up after a long pause. "It was you, then. The girl with no name… excuse me, _Linda_…" he added in a sarcastic voice. 

"What do you mean, Harry?" enquired Dumbledore. "_Who_ was she?" 

Harry pursed his lips, examining his shoes, rocking back and forth in an embarrassed way. 

"Oh. I see," said Albus. "So, Miss…" 

"Rätsel," Linda said. "After my birth my father sent me to Germany where he had some acquaintance. They brought me up as Linda Rätsel…" 

"How fitting," Harry interjected in a derisive tone, "Rätsel means Riddle in German…" 

"Let the lady talk." Dumbledore waved at him, as though silencing an insolent child. "Please, continue, Miss Rätsel." 

"So, I was brought up in Germany, and shortly after I turned fifteen, my father came for me… I had never before seen him, just heard stories of him from my foster-parents, and I was hoping he'd never come… but he did…" She shuddered at the memory and pulled her cloak tighter around herself. "He told me what sort of a role he wanted me to play and I said no. But after a few Cruciatuses I just… changed my mind." 

Harry snorted irritably and his glance fell on Dolores who seemed to be keenly listening to the whole story, malicious joy on her toad-like face. 

"So, you did his bidding, then?" asked Albus. 

"Yes. I did. Somehow father's Death Eaters got a hair of that girl… Chang… was that her name?" 

"You should know, you played her very well," Harry commented with his arms folded in front of his chest. 

"Well…" Linda cringed slightly from Harry's angry look and continued talking to her shoes, "I used Polyjuice to look like the Chang girl and I… seduced him." She made a small movement with her head in Harry's direction. 

"And I take it you conceived?" Dumbledore asked. 

"Of course I did. My father had forced me to drink some potion that enhanced my fertility to make sure I would get pregnant…" 

"Did your father tell you what his intentions with your child were?" 

"He did," said Linda. "Firstly he wanted to blackmail Harry with her…" 

"It's a girl, then," Dumbledore drew the conclusion. "Did Tom want anything else with her?" 

"Yes, he did," replied the young woman. "He knew that by the time my daughter would be born, he'd have run out of those blood-stocks sent to him by… her." She pointed at the malevolently grinning Umbridge. "He knew he had to find a new source to nurture his powers… and he found a book on the topic. It said that if one who is addicted to someone else's blood and he can't get more of it, then there's only one way for him to replenish it… instead of that person's blood he could use a mixture of that person's blood and another that is _partly_ his own." 

"Partly his own?" 

"Yeah. I, being his daughter was of his blood, my blood was partly his. And my daughter has my blood and Harry's… exactly the mixture my father needed. I remember something else, too. The book said that the blood donor had to be alive when father used his or her blood. There is some sort of a magical connection between wizards and their blood. Once a wizard or witch is dead, his or her blood cannot be used any longer, not even if he died a second earlier..." 

"I see. So this must be that ritual, then," Harry muttered under his breath. 

"Ritual?" Linda asked in a wavering voice. 

"Yes." Nodded Harry, not looking at her. "Once I had a vision of Voldemort and my daughter…" 

"_Our_ daughter," Linda corrected him. 

Harry continued, as though he hadn't heard her: "Voldemort was talking about some ritual and my daughter was crying, for she was afraid of it…" 

"That was what I feared… that he'd hurt my little angel…" Linda sniffed and Harry was forced to look at her. What he saw in her eyes was real grief and worry, not at all the malice and nasty smugness he had always imagined Voldemort's daughter wearing. Linda was rather like Adela, she resembled her mother in all respects: not just her appearance, but her heart as well. It struck Harry that this poor girl had been forced to sleep with him at a very early age; she had only been fifteen, after all – a mere child. She had only been a victim of Voldemort's, just like her mother, Harry himself, and their little daughter…   
Before he realised what he was doing, he was holding Linda in his arms, letting her weep into his shoulder, his own body trembling with her sobs. 

"Now I understand…" he whispered into her golden-red locks. 

"What?" hiccoughed Linda, trying to wipe her face dry on the sleeve of her robes. 

"I understand why Voldemort named our daughter Amrita." 

"Amrita? Is that her name?" The young woman's face lit up. "That's so pretty, I like it." 

"Pretty, yes… and do you know what it means?" 

She shook her head no. 

"In Hindi it means 'Draught of Immortality'." 

"Oh, an appropriate name, Amrita," Dumbledore said, "it seems Voldemort is using the child to keep his magic powers… Without her he'd be less than a common Muggle… and losing his powers would be much like dying for him…" 

"So then… he didn't even mean it when he threatened me to make Wormtail and Bellatrix kill my daughter!" Harry breathed as he thought Dumbledore's words over. "He didn't even mean it, the sly old scoundrel! Oh, how could I be so stupid as to believe him? How could I let him live when I had the chance to kill him?" 

"Did I understand it well?" Dumbledore cut in. "You had the chance to do away with Voldemort and wasted it?" 

Harry heaved a huge sigh and hung his head. "I did. And I've felt ashamed of it ever since. But… I just didn't have the heart to sacrifice my daughter… I know I made the wrong choice, but…" 

Linda slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. "I know what you mean. I'm her mother, after all… Harry… please forgive me for deceiving you." 

"I've already forgiven you," he replied. "Now I'm asking for your forgiveness." 

"Why?" she arched a blondish eyebrow at him. 

"Because when I next face Voldemort… for I _will _face him, I won't let him blackmail me again. Now I'm aware that he needs   
our daughter, but… should I have to choose between saving Amrita and the world, I won't hesitate which one to choose." 

**A/N2: **the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into their places. But another twelve chapters before you get the complete picture ;)   


_Mistri, Tonks' Admirer_: yup, knowing the truth is better than illusion, but the kindergarten teachers didn't want to shock poor Daffy. Cute girl with good hair? There was only another girl with whom Daffy had been playing and she won't appear again. Or did you refer to the other kindergarten teacher? Well, that was Linda obviously. 

_Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: yes, it was Linda. 

_Myr Halcyon_: you're right, I'll change the date, Grindelwald was indeed killed in 1945. Thanks for pointing it out! 

_TrixieFirecracker_: you asked: How is that Draco didn't get to take Ginny home if he has the Fates Charm placed on her? Remember that when Moody and Tonks took Ginny back to England, Draco was 'occupied' with Phaedra... The kindergarten teacher was Linda. 

_Noemi:_ nem Myr dobta be a groupba Amrita jelentését, hanem Mistri. Hogy mikor? Már nem igazán emléxem, de nem is számít, mert ebben a fejezetben úgyis megtudtad, hogy mit jelent a neve. Asszem angolul nem 'under herself' van, hanem 'beside herself'. 

_Altec_: lol, this Hysteria was funny, now I'll also remember what happened to Henry VIII's wives. 

_Written in Stars_: you don't necessarily die when you fall into a river, do you? ;) 

_kneh13_: I made up a gynacology illness for Ginny (NOT sexually transmitted one!), that's why she couldn't have kids. 

_Katrina Littlebird_: easy really true that Rasputin couldn't be killed by being shot, stabbed or poisoned? I never knew! No, Linda ISN'T evil, she was a mere victim. 

_Requiem to a Dream_: I think I've answered your questions in this chapter :) 

_bambooanime_: you made me shudder too! 

_Paige_: no, I haven't seen the remake of Parent Trap, I thought it couldn't be as good as the original. Unfortunately you won't see Phaedra for a while... but don't worry, she'll be back - but I refuse to accept that she's evil! She isn't! Well, I wouldn't say that Voldie's lot is more intelligent in this fic... Goyle isn't ;) As for Bella/Voldie, not exactly, though there will be some allusion to it later - but nothing that states clearly that there's anything between them. Nope, the kindergarten teacher wasn't Adela but Linda. As you've seen, this chapter most definitely WASN'T a filler. Actually it was one of my favs. As for Phaedra... I still can't answer... 31 chapters. Dumbledore died in a battle with Voldie at the end of Harry's seventh year (read back on chapter 9). 

_TigHan_: JKR said that James was a Chaser, but the stupid movie-makers showed that plaque with James being a Seeker. However, I rather believe JKR. 

_carameLisSa_: no, I didn't show it when Harry told Daffy she was dead - it wasn't necessary. Brutus was the guy who betrayed Caesar, but according to certain historians he was also Caesar's illegitimate son. 

_OfTheWest_: I update when I have time, but usually once a week. 

_DarkFlower2113_: the kindergarten teacher was Linda. Harry will spend another 4-5 chapters in the underworld. 

_Neni Potter_: your review made me blush, thanks! Linda deserves to be in Elysium, because she's a good girl. It wasn't her fault that Voldie's her dad. Hey, good guessing about Draco and the baby! :) Certainly Harry's parents will know (or already know) about Ginny - I expect he's told them already. Yes, certainly Ginny will be able to have other kids as well. No, I don't speak Spanish, only English, German and a little Russian. 

_romina_: the kindergarten teacher was Linda. 

_Indigo Ziona_: glad you like my portrayal of Draco :D I love the Rasputin song, too, very cool! It isn't sure that Brutus is Caeasar's illegitimiate son, but some historians believe so. They haven't been able to decide the matter yet ;) 

_maureen_: yes, of course Daffy will live with her grandparents after Harry leaves :) You could use magic in the underworld, if you had your wand. But, besides Harry, no one else has his wand. I'm sure that the underworld has healers, since there are accidents. Streams of consciousness? What's that? Never heard of such a thing. It must be cool to learn to write, I never learned how to... but still it was always me who got the best grades whenver we had to write a composition ;) 

_C-chan1_: yes, Rasputin is the evil Russian guy who wiped out the czar's family. Certainly the movie Anastasia is based on history (but I doubt that Rasputin indeed sent a white bat after Anastasia ;) Hah! You remember the dementor line from Enemy? You have a very good memory! :D Ehm... perhaps Voldie IS welcome to the ceremony *looks enigmatic* And no he isn't stupid at all. No, Alcibiades isn't related to Gilderoy, but I liked his personality because he reminded me of Gildy! :) Why did you hate being female? 

_Lioness-07863_: yup, you're right :) 

_Blaubaerin_: yup, the title of the previous chapter alludes to HDM, but nothing else in the chapter did. Nope, not speak out: speak on or fire away (my British friend told me so). What sort of food is finger food? Tonks' pregnancy hasn't been mentioned yet, but the earlier members of my group know that she would be pregnant, because I was asking them for name-ideas for Remus and Tonks' baby, and this reviewer remembered it. I assume you weren't a member back then when I asked for name suggetions. No, unfortunately I don't know the Divine Comedy. 

_*katie_: the girl with reddish blond curly hair wasn't referred to as 'little'. She's a kindergarten teacher, and defintely not Amrita but Linda. Amrita is still alive. 

_hypnotic-babe_: you guessed right :) 

_Wizzabee_: all I have heard about Rasputin is that he was a fraud who deceived the czar's wife about being able to heal her son and he influenced the whole czar family in a bad way. Daphne didn't freak out when she found out she was dead, she accepted it. 

_Hedwig55_: yup, that was Linda :) 

_Any last requests?_: what did you write that film script about? Beaky's fine, we'll go back to him in chapter 26, I think. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten him. 

_Pascale_: *blushes* thanks! :D 

_Elfy19_: you are too kind :) The beaters wanted to seriously hurt Harry so that he wouldn't be able to continue playing. But they didn't manage. 

_Brown*Pryde_: no, Daffy won't delay Harry. The other Weasleys will have a minor role. What will Draco do? You'll get to know in two chapters' time. 

_K.C. Hunter_: I'm always pleased to hear that I managed to make people cry ;) 

_xxGinnyxx_: you wrote: W_on't they be angry with him because he's alive and they were all so sad he was dead and he stayed there for like...a week? Or a couple of days? That's still pretty long... _Long? Days and weeks are long? Then how about ten months? Ginny will find out about her pregnancy in two chapters' time. About the reaction of everyone when they see him - you'll just have to wait and see ;) 

_rebkos_: yes, you're guessing right. But I didn't like that series. 

_FantasyFFan22_: your first question has been answered. As for the second: you'll get to know after chapter 22. 

_strawberry_: yeah, checkmated is nice, though people there don't seem too interested in my fic. I think it's because it's a drama and PG-13 rated, not a humourous/fluffy fic with NC-17 rating. *shrugs* Thanks for reviewing it, though :) 

_kitkat_: yes, the kindergarten teacher was Voldie's daughter. 

_too lazy to sign in_: I'm glad you finally decided to review :) Let's just say that Daffy is exceptionally clever for her age ;) As for Hitler - I was giving thoughts to put Hitler or Stalin into the Tartarus team, but I decided against it, given that they both affected Hungary's (my home country) history a lot (in a very negative way) and I just couldn't bring myself to mention either of them. 

_hi-voltage_: the story is going on, but sometimes filler parts/build-up chapters are also required, you'll have to put up with them. 

_celiawong_: actually the whole story is already typed up, but I'm still correcting it, so I'm posting only one chapter a week. 

_ayse_: the name Tartarus was made up by the ancient Greek, dunno why they named it Tartarus, really. Harry is still worrying about Ginny a lot and wants to rejoin her in the world of the living, but for the time being he can't - so why not try to enjoy his stay at least a bit? 

Also thanks to: _Chelsea of the Moor, torifire126, goldenstar555, Swanny, TheSilverLady, Embyr Black, Moony*padfoot, dementorchic, Evil Reviewer, Sarahamanda, Tyster, angeleyes53, Alexander Phoenix, FREAKSHOW1, fancyeyes, enna seawave, iNiGmA_   
  



	20. He Who Cannot Be Harmed

**Author's note in April, 2005:** this chapter, as many others in many of my fics has been reuploaded since it had lyrics in it that I had to delete (and I didn't trust ffnet's quick-edit). 

**Chapter 20**

He Who Cannot Be Harmed

A week had passed since Elysium's glorious victory over Tartarus, and life in the Underworld started to get back to normal - as far as life could be normal there, and as far as it could be called 'life', since with the exception of Harry, Hades and Persephone no one was alive there.

Well, anyway, life for Harry in the Underworld was pretty much enjoyable. For a couple of days there weren't any training sessions, because there wouldn't be another Quidditch match for about a month and even the slave-driver Godric agreed that his team needed a bit of leisure time.

So Harry spent his days with his family, Daffy included. Two days after the match Linda paid him a visit and told him with a pale but determined face that she supported him in his plans, even if those included the possible sacrificing of their daughter. 'My little angel would be much happier here with us than with my father,' she had said and Harry's heart lifted a bit - just a little bit. He knew what great deal of courage and resolution this young woman must have needed to utter those words, for every mother would want her children to live and prosper… but Linda knew that if she wanted her father stopped and the world saved, then it might require certain sacrifices.

Harry caught himself growing more and more fond of the young woman - he no longer cared that she was Voldemort's daughter, for she was as different from her father as night was from day. He no longer blamed her for seducing him, for he knew she had done it under compulsion, while trying to fight her father's will… she just hadn't been strong enough. But then again, she had only been a fifteen-year-old girl, totally subdued by the might of the evilest wizard in the world… it had been a wonder that she had ever _dared_ defy him at all.

Definitely it couldn't have been easy for her, and Harry respected her for having enough spiritual strength to say 'make the right choice, Harry. At all costs.'

And Harry was determined to do just that.

If only Cedric would return soon, so that he'd be able to leave the Underworld and let his friends and Ginny know that he was alive… and to face Voldemort…

Even though he was enjoying his stay in the netherworld, he longed to go back to world of the living. He felt that every day spent down here was a waste of time. The only good thing in being in the underworld was seeing his parents, Sirius and Daffy, and understanding how and why Voldemort was using Amrita. Now that he knew the truth about Umbridge's quill and its real purpose, Harry felt he'd explode if he remained one more day, sitting and laughing, yet not doing anything against the Dark Lord's terror. Every morning, he went to the Queen of the Underworld to peruse the newspapers, searching for signs of Voldemort striking again. Up till now he hadn't found anything suspicious, but he decided to follow the news. Luckily, Persephone was always willing to share her newspapers with him, so that he didn't need to nick them out of bins like he had done after Voldemort's resurrection. However, the tension was almost as bad as it had been back then. The Disneyland attack had been horrible enough, and Harry still kept wondering why the Dark Lord had attacked the Diggorys. Did it have something to do with Mrs Diggory being a Papafotiu by birth? What could Voldemort want from the Papafotius? No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't manage to find out.

He had even asked Julius Caesar how long it had taken him to give his beloved Cleopatra some spiritual encouragement when he had left the underworld so many centuries ago. 'Well, I only needed a couple of weeks,' Julius had replied, 'but I don't know how long it'll take Cedric Diggory to help his parents. My Cleo wasn't in such a bad condition as they are, poor things…'

So all Harry could do was wait for Cedric to return and hope that Cedric had kept his promise and visited Ginny and told her that Harry wasn't really dead.

* * *

"Look what Uncle Sirius is making for little Daphne!"

"Oooooh, this is beauuuutiful!" Daffy cheered as Sirius showed her a bunny-figure that he had shaped of pasta. They were kneading homemade bread.

"Sirius, don't fool around with the dough, will you?" Lily said in a slightly reproachful voice, but as she caught her granddaughter's eyes she simply couldn't feel resentful anymore. She loved this little girl with all her heart. After she had had Harry, she had been dreaming about having a little daughter as well, but she never had a chance, for fate - and Voldemort - intervened. Now she felt as though she had got the daughter that she had always been dreaming of.

"Bunny-shaped bread! Isn't it great, Lily?" asked Daffy, who for some reason, just couldn't make herself call Lily 'Granny', nor James 'Grandpa'. Perhaps it was because they looked about the same age as her father? Well, after all, everyone in the underworld looked the age they had died at; no one ever grew older. For Daphne, Lily was pretty much like an aunt and James like her father's twin brother. As for Uncle Siri… he was most definitely the coolest person she'd ever met, 'Daddy' included!

"Yes, it's nice, honey, but I'm not sure it can be sliced properly when it's baked." Lily smiled down at her. "Please, knead the dough back into its bread-shape, will you, Sirius? And take care of Daffy a bit, I've got to go and hang these out to dry." She pointed at a basket full of freshly washed clothes.

"Aye," Sirius grunted, somewhat miffed and went to ignite the logs in the oven so that it'd be warm enough by the time he needed to put the pasta into it, and then returned to kneading the dough. He had made bread on several occasions, but there had never been a little child around before, and he had never had to take security measures like closing the oven door before he put the bread in. Lily had always told him he was very careless with housework, but as long as he was willing to help her with the housework at all, she had let him do it in his sloppy way.

"Can I help?" the little girl asked hopefully.

"No, sweetheart, you can't help me, but you could go and help Lily with the clothes or just grab a toy or play with something, okay? I expect your dad and James will be back in a couple of minutes, then they can play with you."

"Okay." Daphne pouted and grabbed her ball. She had been very happy to be with her family, but now that no one could entertain her, she wished she were back in the kindergarten with the other children. She started bouncing the ball in a bored way, until she realised that bouncing it off the wall was almost as good as throwing it to one of her playmates. She started throwing it against the wall and catching it every time it bounced off. Soon she was laughing whenever the ball hit her in the face or just didn't find its way back to her hands. She threw it particularly hard against the wall, and it ricocheted off it, zooming over Daphne's head and towards the oven. It stopped right in front of the oven's open door. The little girl, whose sense of danger hadn't developed yet enough, went after it, not caring that the flames in the oven were almost long enough to reach beyond its open door.

Sirius, firm in the belief that the child was having fun with her ball, kept kneading the bread, humming something, when suddenly there was a cry:

"Daffy!"

He swerved around to see that Harry jerked the child out of the way of a particularly long flame that hit him instead.

"Harry!" James ran up to him - they had obviously just arrived when the child behind Sirius' back had approached the oven.

Lily dashed into the kitchen. "What happened?"

"Nothing, just my idiot of a godfather let the door of that stupid oven open, and let Daffy play around it! She almost got scorched!" Harry snapped, cradling his daughter in his arms. "All right, sweetie?"

"I'm all right, Daddy. But you… you got burned!"

"Have I?" asked Harry, smelling the air. "Well, something definitely _got_ burned."

"The sleeve of your shirt!" said Lily amazedly. "There's a huge hole in it, but your skin… there's no scorch-mark on it."

"Really?" Harry took a glance at his sleeve. "Hmm, really."

"Good reflexes, Harry," his father patted him on the shoulder. "Pity you had left your wand upstairs, you could have just extinguished the flame… really, Sirius, why on earth did you let my granddaughter play around this dangerous thing?"

Sirius tried to grin sheepishly, but James' look was peremptory. "Sorry. I haven't really got used to taking care of infants… it won't happen again, I promise."

"Perhaps I was lucky that I was brought up by the Dursleys and not by you?" Harry frowned at his godfather. "Clearly you wouldn't have taken any better care of me."

"Look, I'm really sorry… I never thought she'd go near that stupid oven," Sirius apologised.

"It's okay, just… take better care of her," Harry said, sitting down, taking Daphne into his lap. "She means so much to me… I know she can't die again, but I don't want her harmed…" _Especially not after what she went through _- he added in thought.

"How come you didn't burn yourself, Daddy? Remember when I burnt myself with the candle on my birthday cake? It hurt so much!" asked Daphne, her curly-haired head resting on his chest.

"Well… that's something I don't understand." Harry shook his head. "Actually I was quite surprised at the match that the boulder-Bludger didn't do me any harm… I barely even felt its impact. And now, I didn't feel the flames burning me… _if_ they burnt me at all."

"They must have. Your shirt is in a terrible state, there's an ugly big hole in it," his mother replied with a worried expression, tossing the bread into the oven and closing its door.

"You know, I think I should ask Dumbledore. Perhaps he knows the answer… or if he doesn't, then Hades will surely know…" Harry said. "It's most intriguing, though…"

* * *

"…and, to express our respect and gratitude towards him, I hereby unveil this monument."

Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister for Magic, pointed his wand at a tall object covered with a white veil, making the veil tumble down to the ground, revealing a life-size statue of Harry Potter.

Some of the people in the crowd gasped, some let out a small sob, while still others just took their wizard hats off and gazed up at the stony face of the statue reverently. For a minute or so only, sniffs and the scratching of journalists' quills could be heard, until the Minister spoke up again.

"As his best friend Ronald Weasley has told me, the Boy Who Lived once told him that the only happy times of his life had been spent here, at Hogwarts. So let his statue remain here till the end of times - here, at Hogwarts, where he was always so happy. Let it stand here for-ever, looking at the Quidditch pitch, where he won so many matches as the Seeker of Gryffindor... Since we cannot visit his grave - for he has none, let this place symbolise Harry Potter's grave. Let his monument serve as a memento to all of us, that even the greatest may fail and none of us is immortal… Let us remember Harry Potter, who has managed to set an example for all of us in every respect," here a snort could be heard, coming from a certain Professor Snape, who turned on his heels and marched away, "his bravery, his willingness to help and his huge heart were the characteristics that highlighted his short life. Let us remember him as a hero, a good friend and very fine wizard."

Ron swallowed the lump in his throat when Kingsley said 'a good friend', and offered Hermione a tissue to dry her eyes.

The Weasley parents, the twins and Percy were standing behind Ron and Hermione. Mrs Weasley silently crying. Not even Fred and George seemed themselves today; anyone who'd known them would have said that they'd never seen these two pranksters so broken before.

"Farewell, our dear investor-friend," George muttered. "We have to thank you for our fortune, old buddy…"

"Yeah. Hope he can see us and hear us from up there." Fred pointed at the sky. "Hey, Harry, we'll name our next invention after you, okay?"

Percy didn't utter a word, just stared at his shoes, as though not feeling worthy to be here. He had long regretted siding with Fudge and working against Harry so many years ago… Harry had been right, he'd been telling the bloody truth, after all…

Remus and Tonks were holding hands, neither of them crying, but both of them very pale. No one had ever seen Tonks with dark hair, but for the memorial she decided to not wear pink or violet - for once her hair was not spiky, but elegantly flattened and jet-black.

The one sniffing and blowing his nose in the loudest way was Hagrid, his shaggy beard soaking wet with tears. Hedwig was sitting on his shoulder, her head bent, her amber eyes cast down in grief.

"Let me ask Minerva McGonagall, Harry's one-time head of house, and current headmistress of the school to say a few words," continued the Minister.

Minerva, with an unusually pallid face, climbed the steps to the small dais from which Shacklebolt had been speaking. "I don't even know where to begin…" her voice was slightly wavering, although she wasn't the type whose voice ever faltered. "I… I remember the first time I saw Harry; it was on the day his parents had been killed. Albus had taken him to his foster parents, and I expressed to him my worries that the Boy Who Lived might not be in good hands with those Muggles, for he was to become a real legend… and all that Albus replied was that it would be enough to turn any boy's head, being famous before he could walk and talk, being famous for something he couldn't even remember... And well, Albus had been right to place Harry under the care of his relatives, for the next time I met him, when he came to Hogwarts, I got to know him as a brave, upright, generous boy, whose heart was definitely in the right place… he was famous, yes, but he never got a big head, he remained as modest as no one else could have been in his place..."

Hagrid, who was standing next to Ginny, whispered in a raspy voice: "Can't stand no more of this, it's heart-wrenchin'! Also, I gotta go back ter teaching… fifth years are waitin' fer me, I'm showin' 'em Thestrals today… so, see yeh, then," and with that he ambled away. Hedwig took wing and soared from his shoulder to sit on Ron's, clearly interested in the rest of the memorial. Ginny stared after Hagrid for a while, then directed her attention back to the Hogwarts headmistress.

"…I feel honoured to have had the chance to teach him," Minerva finished her speech, her eyes looking peculiarly wet as she descended the stairs.

And so it went: wizard after wizard, witch after witch emerged on to the dais to say some nice words about Harry. Ginny was starting to feel dizzy at all the stupid babble and when Dedalus Diggle began to tell anecdotes about Harry recognising him in the Leaky Cauldron after he'd once met him in a shop, Ginny decided she'd had enough.

She made her way through the endless sea of people, accidentally stepping on the foot of Florean Fortescue, who had already given a detailed report on what sort of ice creams Harry had preferred. She muttered an apology and elbowed her way out of the crowd, not even looking at Cho Chang Corner and her husband. Cho opened her mouth to greet her as she passed by them, but Ginny deliberately pretended not to have noticed her there, since she was mad enough at Cho for her soppy account of Harry's cute but slightly awkward ways of courting. _Well, with me he'd never been awkward, had he? _Ginny thought bitterly as she walked across the lawn. _Bet you just couldn't handle him, Cho…_ she added in a mocking sort of way.

Without truly realising where she was going, she just let her legs take her wherever they pleased and after about half an hour she realised that her legs had felt like taking her into the Forbidden Forest. Not too deeply into it, just to a small clearing near the forest's edge.

She well remembered when she'd last been here: Hagrid had tried to show her and her fifth-year mates the Thestrals. She and Luna had exchanged impish grins back then - they had both ridden a Thestral, after all…

Now there were students from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, standing in a circle around Hagrid and half a dead cow. Some of them gasped as small chunks of meat got torn from the cow and disappeared into the thin air.

"Well, can anyone see 'em?" Hagrid asked in a much less enthusiastic way than he had had when he'd taught Ginny and her mates about these bizarre creatures.

There were again a few students who raised their hands, looking around to see who else had done so. They looked slightly taken aback when they realised that most of their classmates hadn't raised their hands.

"But why can I see them if the others can't?" enquired a Hufflepuff boy with a nervous expression.

"Because on'y such people can see 'em who've seen death already," Hagrid replied with a sullen expression.

"Can you see them, Professor?" a Ravenclaw girl asked.

"Yep, I can." Nodded Hagrid. "Seen me dad die when I was twelve. Now, the good things about Thestrals…"

While Hagrid embarked on describing the wonderful properties of these invisible-to-most-people animals, Ginny was starting to feel more and more frustrated. Why had she come here in the first place? Surely her legs couldn't have brought her here of their own will? When Hagrid had told her that he'd be teaching a class about Thestrals, she just shrugged as though she hadn't cared, but somewhere deep in her subconscious, something had started to nag her to go and have a look at them. She'd always wondered what they could look like… she should be able to see them now, shouldn't she?

Yet, she couldn't see them.

No matter how hard she strained her eyes, all she could see was Hagrid, the students and the cow whose flesh had vanished to reveal its whitish ribs.

Ginny closed her eyes and pictured Harry falling into the Styx, then opened them to look at the Thestrals - only they weren't there. Or… well, they must've been there, but she still couldn't see them.

_Harry falling into that dratted river… Harry drowning, thus dying… _she repeated in herself, her hands balled into fists…

She opened her eyes again…

"This can't be true!" she shouted, losing her temper.

That was only when Hagrid noticed her. "Ginny? What are yeh doin' in here?"

"Hagrid! Are the Thestrals still here?" she asked desperately, running up to him.

"'Course they are, there." The Care of Magical Creatures Professor pointed to the left - but there wasn't anything… was there?

"I can't see them!" Ginny said hysterically. "They surely can't be here! This must be a ruse, I should be able to see them!" she grabbed Hagrid's waistcoat, "I saw him die, Hagrid! I bloody well saw him die, yet these stupid horses still remain invisible! Why?"

"Ginny, Ginny." Hagrid gently peeled her hands off his waistcoat and put his own on her shoulders reassuringly. Ron had told him that Ginny had been there when Harry died, but he hadn't gone into the details, so all Hagrid knew was that it had happened somewhere in Greece. "Calm down," the gamekeeper said soothingly.

"How can I?" she hissed, not caring that the students were staring at her with a 'she must've gone mad' expression. "I saw him die, yet I can't see these things! I want an explanation, for heaven's sake!"

"Ginny… yeh know… There's a funny thing with 'em, Thestrals. It's not a rule that yeh have ter see 'em if yeh've seen death, at least not righ' after it… it has ter… sink in."

"It HAS sunk in!" She stamped her foot. "It happened almost two weeks ago, and it's not like I haven't accepted the truth yet! I saw him die and I bloody well understand that he's dead! He's gone, he snuffed it, he's kicked the bucket, and he'll never come back, okay? HE IS DEAD! I KNOW HE IS! So - why - can't - I - see - them?" she pointed at the blank point where Hagrid had said the Thestrals were.

The gamekeeper shook his head. "There might be exceptions ter all rules… yeh might be an exception, I don' know."

"But I want to know…" Ginny said, this time rather whispering than shouting, her voice beseeching and desperate.

"Well…" Hagrid scratched his jaw, then turned to the students. "Lesson over fer today. You may go. And don' leave the path we came here on!"

After the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws departed, Hagrid led Ginny to a fallen trunk. "Here, sit down, an' let's talk."

* * *

"So, you're saying you should have been burnt but you weren't?" Hades asked, leaning back into his throne-like chair and examining Harry's features.

"Yeah. And I was badly hit by that Bludger directed at me by the Borgia woman, but I barely felt it, and it didn't do me any harm," Harry replied.

"Could it be, Hadie?" Persephone knitted her blonde eyebrows.

"Well, it must be." The King of the Underworld shrugged.

"What?" demanded Harry, squinting at Dumbledore, who was standing next to him and smoothing his long white beard contemplatively. To Harry it seemed as though Albus had known something, perhaps he had known the answer to Harry's question when Harry had asked him, but Albus had still advised him to go to Hades and ask him, too. What could be that thing that Dumbledore knew/suspected but didn't tell Harry?

"May I try something?" asked Hades.

"Er," Harry looked at his parents, who shrugged with bewildered faces. "Okay."

"First of all: I do not want to hurt you, boy," the King of the Underworld said, "but it seems there's only one way to be sure of this…" He pointed his index finger at Harry, sending a blue flame at his chest. It had happened so fast that Harry couldn't have jumped aside, even if he'd wanted to. Everyone around him gasped as the flame ruined the front of his shirt, but the skin beneath it remained intact.

"Hm… most curious," Hades said. "Do you know what sort of a flame I just sent at you?"

"How could I know?" Harry frowned.

"That was a Blue Arrow Flame, an exceptionally dangerous weapon. It's a bit like my brother Zeus' lightning, just not lethal. It's used by some of the Gods to hurt someone badly, but not kill them… It should have burnt a deep hole into your chest, young man."

Lily paled at the mere thought of her son getting a huge hole into his chest and grasped James' arm.

"Then how come it hasn't harmed him?" Sirius interjected.

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, it's because of the Styx," Hades replied.

"The Styx?" Harry's eyes widened, while Dumbledore let out a murmur sounding like 'I thought so'.

"Have you heard of Achilles, Harry?" Persephone asked.

"I s'pose I have." The young wizard nodded. "He was some warrior besieging Troy, wasn't he?"

"Yes, he was. He was said to be invulnerable, because his mother, the Goddess Thetis, had bathed him in the River Styx to give him protection against injuries. There was only one single point on his body that hadn't submerged into the river: his heel, where his mother had been holding him, hanging him into the water. And it became his undoing: he was injured on his heel and bled to death. But you…"

"But I…" Harry breathed, barely believing what Hades was suggesting. "But I fell into the river… and my whole body got soaked in it… does this mean…?"

"We think it does." Persephone nodded. "Look at this," she bent down and fished a flimsy magazine out from a whole heap of newspapers. "Tear it." She handed it over to Harry.

The young wizard tried to tear it, but the thin paper just wouldn't rip. He looked up, directly into the beautiful queen's eyes. "This… this has come through the Styx, hasn't it?"

"It has." Persephone nodded. "Everything that comes through the river becomes resistant to all outer harms."

"This means I can't… can't be harmed?" Harry whispered.

"Yes and no," said Hades. "You can't be stabbed, shot or cursed to death… you can only die of age, illnesses or poisoning, but no outer impact."

"This is creepy," Sirius breathed.

"It is," agreed Harry. "I can't be killed by _Avada Kedavra_, either?"

"No, you can't, for it belongs into the category of outer harms," Albus replied.

Harry stared at the magazine that he was still gripping tightly, exhilarated and shocked at the same time. "I'm invulnerable."

* * *

"So… so yeh had sort o' eloped with him?" Hagrid asked, his huge arm around Ginny's shoulder as they were sitting on the trunk. Ginny had just finished telling him the story of Harry dying, but she had been careful to leave out the fact why she and Harry had gone to the Row of Gods. She was aware that the story seemed full of plot-holes without it, but she knew Hagrid well enough to be wary about telling him things he might blab about when being drunk or just inattentive.

She nodded. "Sort of. But of course Shacklebolt didn't tell this to the press… what would they say about the Boy Who Lived?" A sad little smile appeared on her face. "I think the Minister wanted to keep Harry's image in the memory of wizardkind as the noblest man on Earth. And well… he was noble. Just not in all respects. He was… he was human like all of us… he had his faults. But don't think he seduced me, for I went with him out of my free will…"

"'Course I never thought he did." The gamekeeper shook his shaggy head. "But I still don' understand what yeh two were doin' near the River Styx…"

"Well, Hagrid, I'd… I'd rather you didn't ask," she replied vaguely, not looking at his face.

"Oh. Okay. 'Course you have a righ' ter have secrets. I understand it, I do. I was just wonderin', was there a cute three headed doggie, too?"

"Oh yes, there was," Ginny said, happy to have an opportunity to change the already awkward conversation to something else. "He was called Cerberus."

"Bet the little one looked just like me Fluffy," sighed the half-giant. "But, back ter yeh an' Harry, I really don' understand how come yeh don' see them Thestrals, 'specially if yeh say his death has sunk in… I just keep sayin' there's an exception ter every rule, an' yeh might be one, too. By the way, what has yer husband said to yer elopin' with Harry? If that's not too much o' a tactless question ter ask… "

Ginny shook her head, chewing her lower lip. "No, I suppose it's not tactless. Draco was livid with anger, of course. He thought Harry and I had cheated on him… well, Harry told him we hadn't, before he died, but…" She looked up at him, contemplating whether to say it or not, but with Harry dead there was no use telling lies about their relationship, at least not to their best friends. She had told Hermione too, after all… "…the truth is that we actually did."

Hagrid's eyes popped and he stared at her for a while, and finally let out a chuckle. "Why am I not surprised, eh?"

Ginny shrugged, not knowing whether to feel embarrassed or relieved that she'd confided in him. "I know I've committed… adultery, but… heck, I don't regret it! Does that make me a scarlet woman? Somehow I don't care if it does… I loved Harry with all my heart, and I'm glad I gave myself to him before he died. At least I have a beautiful memory of it… and I'll be able to remember it even when I'm old and grey-haired, sitting in a rocking chair, knitting shoes for kittens…"

"…watching your several grandchildren play around you." Hagrid nodded with a small smile.

"No. I'll never have grandchildren," Ginny whispered. "Nor children. I'm barren, Hagrid."

The gamekeeper knitted his bushy eyebrows. "S'rry. I never knew."

"It doesn't matter anymore… the only man I would have loved to have children with is dead." She bent her head and hid her face in her hands. She felt like crying, but the awaited tears just refused to come. She still hadn't shed a single tear, although two weeks had passed since the tragic events. "I loved him so much…" she muttered. "Still love him."

Hagrid gently stroked her hair. "I know. I remember yeh in yer first year at Hogwarts… yeh came to me cabin every day, hopin' ter catch a glance of him… I never thought… never thought it'd all end like this."

She threw herself into his embrace, and he just rocked her. "Cry, cry, little one. It helps."

"I can't…" she moaned, screwing up her face, trying to force a single tear out of her eyes, but it just wouldn't come.

Suddenly something fluttering and twittering made her look up. It was Hedwig, madly chirping and making circles above them in a nervous way.

"She's tryin' ter tell us something." Hagrid rose to his feet. Suddenly there was a bang, coming from the direction of the school park. "The ceremony! Holy Screwts, what's goin' on there?"

Ginny didn't answer, but started running, her wand drawn. Hagrid hurried after her, and with his long strides, managed to overtake her in no time. In about ten minutes they reached the edge of the forest to see smoke blurring the sky. Harry's wonderful statue had exploded into a dozen pieces and something greenish hovering above it…

The Dark Mark.

Under it, a furious fight was raging. Curses zigzagged everywhere. Ginny could barely make out who was sending them at whom… Then she spotted a redhead engaged in a duel with a highly familiar woman who had long, black hair…

"Bellatrix," Ginny whispered. "You're not harming my brother, you foul, evil…"

Without thinking she hurtled towards them, sending an Impediment jinx at the female Death Eater.

For some seconds Bellatrix Lestrange froze, and this gave Ginny a new idea… She'd seen Harry do it in Atlantis, after all… why shouldn't she try it?

"_Tempus glacietur_!" she shouted at the crowd, managing to freeze about half of them in time. Surely if it had been Harry casting the charm, he would have frozen everyone, but since it was the very first time Ginny had tried it, she had done pretty well. Those who hadn't been frozen stopped their fight for a second, gaping at the frozen ones.

Ginny felt some sort of exhilaration that wanted to burst out of her, she felt like shouting 'I've done it', but she could never even let out a victorious yelp, for a flash of light issued from the smoke and hit her fair and square in the chest. 


	21. Union

**A/N**: you rabid H/Gers will hate me for this chapter. Sorry, please forgive me *hides*   


  


**Chapter 21**

**Union**

  


_"No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars,_   
_or sailed to uncharted land,_   
_or opened a new doorway for the human spirit."_   
(Helen Keller)   


Ginny opened her eyes, blinked to clear her blurred vision and realised that she didn't have the vaguest idea where she was. The ceiling she was staring up at was unusually white and clean, and there was some weird and slightly unpleasant smell… the smell of total hygiene and medicines… the smell of a hospital. 

She wrinkled her nose; she'd never liked such over-hygienic smells. Slowly she sat up and looked around the ward. There were three other invalids there: a woman with nasty-looking boils all over her face; an old man whose beard seemed to be growing much faster than it should have, for most of it was lying in coils on the floor; and a person whose age and gender Ginny couldn't tell, for he/she was heavily bandaged, the bandages leaving only his/her mouth free. 

Sitting up in her bed, Ginny tried to remember how she had got here in the first place. There had been that stupid memorial… then she couldn't see those stupid Thestrals… then some stupid Death Eaters had attacked the people at the memorial… oh yeah, Bellatrix Lestrange had tried to kill Percy, but Ginny intervened and froze half of the combatants with the spell she had learnt from Harry… 

_Oh, Harry…_

She let out a huge sigh, knowing she wouldn't be able to cry, no matter how hard she tried. Then her stomach gave a loud rumble. _I must be very hungry_, she thought, having no idea when she'd last eaten. How long had she been unconscious?   
There was a moan coming from the heavily bandaged person in the corner. The person must have been a male, judging by his voice. He seemed to be trying to say something, but he must have been too weak or ill to talk normally. 

Ginny thought this man might need help, so she hopped out of bed, and had to grab the bedpost, for the world suddenly turned, as though she had sat on a roundabout. Surely she had become unaccustomed to standing, and she must not have eaten for a long time… if one's starving, one is likely to get dizzy, after all… 

"Hurts… it huuuurts…" muttered the person in the corner. 

_Where was a Healer or a nurse when a patient needed them? _– Ginny thought irritably and released the bedpost, trying to stand on her feet without falling. _Okay, I'm still upright_ – she took a step. Then another. _Well, walking is something you can't forget…_

With careful steps she left the ward, not caring that she was barefoot and wearing only a nightdress. "Hello?" she called out, looking this way and that. The doors of all the wards around were closed, and no nurse or Healer could be seen. "Hello?"   
She glanced at the name of the ward she'd come out of so that she'd know where to go back if she didn't want to get lost. It was called the 'Günter der Gewalttätige' ward. She remembered she had read about this person in _Quidditch through the Ages._

_Are all wards here named after sportsmen?_ – she wondered as she headed for a door at the end of a corridor. She opened it to find herself face to face with none other than Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood. 

"Ginny?" Neville's face brightened as he spotted her. "You're up! Does this mean you're okay?" 

"Er…" Ginny didn't know what to answer. She wasn't feeling okay, not in the least… not when she was this dizzy, hungry, and heart-broken… "I was just looking for a Healer… there's a man in ward Günter der Gewa… forgot his name… well, that man needs a Healer, he's suffering…" 

"I'll go and find one, okay?" said Neville and hurried back in the direction he and Luna had come from. 

"What are you doing here?" Ginny asked. 

"We've just visited Nev's parents." Luna shrugged. 

"But you… why have _you_ come?" 

"Because Nev wanted to introduce me to his mum and dad… as his fiancée." 

"Fiancée?" Ginny's eyes widened. "Wow. Congrats." 

"Thanks." The blonde girl nodded solemnly, her usual radish-earrings swinging. "It was not a happy visit, though… those poor people… I doubt whether they'll remember me the next time I come with Neville to visit them." 

Suddenly the door through which Neville had left – the door over which a board bore the legend SPELL DAMAGE - opened, and a highly familiar wizard came through, arm in arm with a madly grinning witch. 

"Oh! An acquaintance!" he said cheerfully, flashing Ginny with a thirty-two-teeth smile. "You're the Weasley girl who was kidnapped by the monster, aren't you?" 

"Who's this buffoon?" Luna asked with a bored expression. 

"Gilderoy Lockhart at your service!" the wizard replied eagerly. "Want an autograph? I can write my name perfectly now, for I remember every bit of my memories! I've just been released from here for good! I'm healed! By the way, this is Gladys Gudgeon, my greatest fan, and fiancée." He pointed at the woman next to him. 

"Er… congratulations on your engagement," Ginny said monotonously, not too happy that she had had to offer congratulations on the second person's engagement in the last three minutes. Everyone around her seemed to find their love and happiness, but she knew she'd never be happy again – not without Harry. 

"Thank you very much," Lockhart said with his flashy smile, "and soon you can congratulate me on another thing as well…" 

"Are you two going to have a baby?" Luna arched an eyebrow at him. 

"No, there's something much better!" Gilderoy declared cheerfully. "I'm going to write a book about my years in St Mungo's.   
It will be called _Amazing Amnesiac_ and…" 

"Oh, here he comes!" Luna cut in, pointing at her fiancé. 

Neville was back, followed by a nurse. "Ward Günter der Gewalttätige?" the nurse asked. 

Ginny nodded, and the nurse hurried off towards the ward in question. 

"Luna's just told me that you're engaged." Ginny turned to Neville. "I hope you'll be very happy together." 

"You're engaged, too?" Lockhart interjected. "That's great, I'm going to get married soon, too! Have you already decided about the wedding arrangements? How many people to invite, what to wear, etc., etc.?" 

"Er, no." Neville shook his head, then turned back to Ginny. "Thanks for the good wishes." He beamed. Ginny wondered what had happened to the once pudgy, round-faced, shy little Neville. Who exactly was this tall, thin and good-looking man? 

"Ginny…" Neville's face changed to serious, "I'm sorry I couldn't be there at the memorial. We didn't even know what happened until we came home a week ago… we were in Finland, you know…" 

"…looking for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks," Luna added. "I managed to take some excellent photos of them, they'll be in the next edition of _The Quibbler_… but you're surely not interested…" 

"Crumple-Horned Snorkacks?" Gilderoy cut in, "I saw a whole herd of those when I was in Norway ten years ago, saving the fjords from freezing over…" 

Ginny rolled her eyes, and waved irritably. "Don't even listen to him." She was again starting to feel weak and giddy. "What I was wondering though, was where my parents or brothers were…" 

Neville and Luna exchanged a meaningful look. "Well," the young wizard began, "I met Ron yesterday in Diagon Alley and he said that your family-members were taking it in turns to sit with you here, but… I suppose even they need time to rest and relax, they've been spending almost all their time here for the past two weeks." 

"Two weeks?" Ginny gasped. "You don't mean… that I've been out cold for two whole weeks?" 

"Yes, you have," Luna replied. "According to Ron the Healers had to feed you in some Muggle way, called… interfusion?" 

"Infusion," Neville corrected her. Suddenly a Healer dashed past them, their wand out. The crossed bone-and-wand emblem on his chest was glowing like an alarm, perhaps indicating that he needed to hurry and check on a patient. 

"Quick, in here!" The head of the nurse that Neville had found, poked out of the Günter ward. "It's the Weasley boy! I think we're losing him!" 

"W…Weasley boy?" Ginny stuttered, going as white as a sheet. 

"Er, well…" Neville said in a drawling voice, "we didn't want to burden you with it, but… your brother George got seriously injured in that fight, and…" 

Ginny fainted into his arms. 

* * * * * 

She was dreaming – dreaming about George dying. _No! George, George, stay with us! _her mind screamed, but she didn't wake, just kept tossing and turning. She saw the heavily bandaged person lying on the bed in the corner again and heard him moan with pain… how could she be so stupid not to recognise his voice? _No, he can't die! He can't die like Harry did!_

"George!" 

She opened her eyes, but her vision was too blurry to take in her surroundings properly. She realised that she had somehow sat up in her bed, her arms were outstretched, as though she had tried to reach out for her dying brother… she lowered her hands to the silk covers. 

Silk? Surely beds didn't have silk covers in St Mungo's did they? 

She looked down at the quilt that was decorated with heavily embroidered frills… the letter M was embroidered into it; it was full of M's… Ginny's heart sank. She was back in the Malfoy Manor, in her own bed that would have befitted a royal princess. 

"Welcome home, Virginia," said a cold voice. 

Ginny slumped back into her pillow. "How did I get back here?" 

"Oh, well, I happened to go and visit you in St Mungo's when the nurse said you had finally woken up and seemed to be strong enough to walk. The only problem was that you had fainted at the news of your brother almost dying…" 

"Does this mean he hasn't died?" Ginny cut in hopefully. 

"Yeah," her husband replied. "He survived, and he's doing better than he was before the bout, or so I heard." 

"Thanks heaven," she sighed happily. 

"Well, anyway, the nurse said you'd fainted because of the shock, then woke up and went into hysterics, so they had to give you sedatives. However, the sedative made you totally dazed, so you didn't even notice that I had come for you and brought you home. Of course the Healers gave me permission to take you home, saying you were all right, apart from the shock…" 

"And what did my parents say about this?" Ginny defiantly folded her arms in front of her chest. 

"They weren't there to say anything," Draco said. "They arrived after I took you from the hospital. They must've been a bit displeased about me bringing you with me though, for they put in an appearance just half an hour ago, demanding I let you go back with them to that pathetic dog kennel of theirs… I told them they shouldn't bother you now, for you needed rest. They will surely come back soon again, but you, my dear, will tell them that you do not wish to go with them. Understood?" 

Ginny's eyes narrowed and she gritted her teeth. _Just another nine months and I'll be free from you, you twisted little toerag! You can be nasty to me and you can separate me from my family now, but not for ever! I'll be counting the days till my Day of Independence, and I'll make sure you'll never have a chance to blackmail me again!_

"Urgh, if glances could kill, I'd be dead!" Draco said in a mocking voice. 

_Make fun of me, don't hold back! Enjoy it as long as you can, for it won't last too long anymore! Nine months, and you'll be nothing but a bad memory for me! Oh yes, I will give you the divorce papers in person so I can see the horror on your face when you read them, and you won't be able to stop me this time! I will flush my bloody wedding ring down the toilet, and just to annoy you, I'll set all our house-elves free! Can you imagine cooking for yourself? Washing your own dirty socks? Hah, Hermione would love to see the Malfoy-elves flooding out of the manor…_

"Have you gone mad?" 

"What?" Ginny shuddered. 

"That expression on your face… it was… malicious… creepy," Draco said in a rather insecure voice. He had never seen his wife looking like that before. He feared that Potter's death and George Weasley's near death must have unhinged something in Ginny's mind. 

"Your fault." She shrugged. "You keep giving me such looks; it just rubbed off on me. And now, would you please tell a house-elf to prepare me dinner… or breakfast or lunch, whatever time of day it is." 

With a curt nod, Draco left the room, and Ginny was finally left alone with her thoughts, not having to worry that her expressions would betray her. She felt relieved that George was doing better, but anger surged up in her at the thought of Voldemort's attack on the memorial. How many people could have got injured? Had someone even died? She hoped not. Her heart clenched at the thought what Harry would have said if he were alive: 'It's all my fault. All my bloody fault. Had I not been so weak, had I not let him blackmail me with my daughter, then this wouldn't have happened…' 

_You don't need to feel pangs of remorse because of this… don't blame yourself up there, okay?_ – she thought, slightly lifting her head as though talking to someone in the sky.   
  
  


That someone whom she was talking to was most definitely not in the sky, but down in the Underworld, and didn't hear her at all – even if he had been able to hear her, he would have waved at her indignantly and said 'don't try to console me, it's still my bloody fault!' 

Harry was indeed broken by the news of the attack on his memorial. He found the idea of the memorial ridiculous enough, knowing that he was totally alive, thank you very much, and he was sort of mad at Kingsley for arranging this whole stupid ceremony. Had Shacklebolt not organised it, then Voldemort wouldn't have attacked there, but if Harry hadn't 'died', then Shacklebolt wouldn't have organised the memorial. Also, if stupid Draco hadn't brought the Aurors after them, then Harry wouldn't have 'died', but if Ginny hadn't eloped with Harry, then Draco wouldn't have gone to the Greek Magical Law Enforcement… however, if Lucius hadn't cursed Ginny's dad, then Ginny wouldn't have eloped with Harry… 

"Damn you, Lucius Malfoy!" Harry kicked into a rock irritably. "And you too, Draco." Tension had been building up in him ever since he'd read the _Daily Prophet_ article with the title HAVOC AT POTTER'S MEMORIAL two weeks earlier. Persephone had tried to hide the newspaper from him, but Harry could read her guilty expression pretty well and had demanded that she let him see whatever she'd been hiding. 

He dropped onto the grass next to a little creek and pushed his shoes off, slipping his feet into the water. It felt refreshingly cool. He leaned back onto the ground and closed his eyes, trying to shut all the disturbing thoughts out of his mind. He had almost succeeded when suddenly a shadow was cast over him. Although his eyes were closed, he knew someone had arrived, for the rays of the sun (yes, the sun is shining even down there!) no longer warmed his face. 

He squinted up at the figure to see Linda standing there. "Hi," she greeted him. "May I join you?" 

"Er… okay." He shrugged, sitting up. If the one casting the shadow had been someone else, he would have felt annoyed at being disturbed, but Linda was someone he had never felt uncomfortable with since the legendary Quidditch match. 

Harry hadn't expected his parents to understand his predicament, although he had told them about Voldemort's blackmail. They had tried to convince him he hadn't done anything wrong by placing family above everything else and Sirius had shared their opinion. Even Dumbledore tried to alleviate his concerns by repeating that now Harry had a weapon in his hand: the knowledge that Voldemort was dependent on Amrita and losing her would mean the end of his wizarding career. 

They had all been nice and supportive, but Harry felt that none of them really understood him. With Linda it was different. She had once also let Voldemort force her into something she regarded as wrong and she also felt tainted by Voldemort's evilness and her own weakness at resisting him… 

"I know how you feel," she whispered, shedding her blue mantle, laying it on the grass and taking her place on it. 

"I know you do," he replied, staring at the little fish chasing each other around his toes. "I hope these aren't piranhas." 

She let out a laugh that sounded like jingling of little bells. "Not that they would be able to hurt you if they _were_ piranhas, eh?" As she looked into his eyes, her smile vanished. "I meant it. I know what it feels like. You feel dirty and wallow in self-accusation so much that you feel it's strangling you." 

"I don't wallow…" 

"Yes, you do," she replied, "as did I. Actually I still do. Had I not been so weak, had I been able to say no to my father even after he cast the Cruciatus on me again and again, then I wouldn't have seduced you and wouldn't have provided my father with something to blackmail you with. Then you would have killed him when you had the chance and perhaps he'd be playing Quidditch for Tartarus now." 

It was Harry's turn to laugh. "And I thought you were being serious!" 

"I was." She smiled sadly. "It's my fault, it's your fault, but first of all: it's _his_ fault. That of my father. We are both his victims, as is the whole world. Accept it, and stop eating yourself or you'll go mad. Don't think I haven't felt the way you do now, but my mum helped me see what I'm trying to help you see. Voldemort's the mastermind here; we are only unfortunate marionettes that he was playing puppeteer with. Just like my mother… he used her then got rid of her." 

"Really, your mother…" Harry hesitated whether to ask the question or not. "Did she… _love _him?" 

Linda made a grimace. "I think she still loves him… in her peculiar way. She doesn't love Voldemort… she loves Tom, the Tom she got to know as a clever, yet enigmatic boy… the Tom who hadn't then started killing… I wouldn't say the _innocent _Tom, for I doubt he was ever innocent…" 

"He must have been. At least as a little child," Harry said, withdrawing his feet from the water. "No one's born evil… the circumstances turn someone evil… don't they?" 

"You mean that he grew up in an orphanage where he never got any love? I don't know." She shook her head, sunshine glimmering on her red-gold locks. "You grew up with rather nasty people too, didn't you?" 

"Well, yeah…" 

"…and look at you, your heart is in the right place, you never turned as my father…" 

"But I could have," he sighed, gazing into her grey eyes. "Remember that I told you about the sixteen-year-old Tom who came out of that diary? Well, he said to me that I resembled him, and not just my looks… even the Sorting Hat wanted to put me into Slytherin… Dumbledore said it was because of the connection between Voldemort and me through my scar, but… perhaps it was for something else…" He looked away. 

"You know you're being totally silly?" She reached out to cup his chin and make him face her again. "Are you suggesting you're anything like him? Then listen to me, Harry: you're as different from him as day is from night. For one thing _you_ feel pangs of remorse – he has never felt such a thing. You have a good heart; he has none at all… He has minions who revere and fear but do not like him, and you have friends who love you… I'm your friend, too." 

"I know you are," he replied with a wistful smile as she drew nearer and embraced him. It felt good to be in her arms, it felt reassuring, calming… He had never felt this calm and so much at peace with the world since his last encounter with Voldemort five years earlier. She seemed to be radiating some inexplicable peace, channelling it into him… He felt as if under the effect of a charm, a charm making not him think, just _feel_… He held her in his arms for what seemed to be hours.   
  
  


The sun had already set and crickets started to chirp by the time Harry came to his senses. 

"What has just happened?" he whispered to her, their fingers intertwined. 

"I think it's called sex?" She arched an eyebrow at him. 

He sat bolt upright, releasing her hand as quick as though it had burnt him. "But why? Why have you… we…?" 

She held out a hand to silence him. "Don't think of anything bad, Harry, just listen to me." 

"I have listened to you too much already." He scowled, not daring to believe what he had done. He hadn't wanted to, had he? She had bewitched him… but… that was out of the question, she had no magic powers down here, she had no wand to enchant him with… Then how could this little wench manage to seduce him – _again?_

"Listen – to – me," Linda repeated. "Listen and don't interrupt. What has just happened wasn't just sex, not in the normal, vulgar sense, it was… a union. A union of souls through bodies." Harry frowned at her, not understand anything, but feeling more and more irritated by the second. Ignoring his almost murderous look, she continued. "I knew you wouldn't want to, but I had to do it, to help you… Persy helped me with this little magic…" 

"What magic?" 

"I asked you to not interrupt, didn't I?" She gave him a piercing look. "Since I can't do magic, Persy cast this spell on me to enable me to make you want it… without thinking. It also enabled me to unite with you on all levels… anyway, it happened with the consent of your family and Dumbledore, so…" 

"What? WHAT?" he gasped. "You don't mean you asked them for permission to shag me?" 

"Oh, don't use such rude words, Harry!" She jumped up, not caring that she was wearing practically nothing. 

"_Why_, haven't you also described it as _sex_?" he demanded. 

"Well, on one level it was, but on other level… it was more." 

"Why? Why did you need this…?" 

"The proper question is 'why did _I _need it'?" she said. 

"You don't mean _I_ needed it?" 

"Yes, I do - you did." 

He gave her a questioning look, his arms folded challengingly. 

She slumped back onto her robes, facing him. "It was Dumbledore's idea. He said you were invulnerable in body, but your soul was so fragile… we all knew it was… and he thought you needed a… spiritual support. That would be me." 

"Why would I need spiritual support?" He shook his head. "I've been pretty well off without it so far, thank you very much!" 

"Hah! Then why are you still accusing yourself for a momentary weakness that had happened five years ago? You're emotionally instable, Harry!" 

"Oh, am I?" This was his turn to jump up and glare down at her. "Emotionally instable, eh?" 

"Yes." She nodded. "Dumbledore told me so." 

"Dumbledore, of course!" Harry huffed with his arms akimbo. "He still remembers the tantrum I threw after Sirius' death and thinks I'm still that disturbed… but I'm not!" 

_Then why are you shouting at this girl, eh? – a little voice in his head replied._

_Why? Because she used some Entrancing_ _Enchantment on me to seduce me again and claims that she only wanted to help! As if I needed her help!_

_What if you really need it?_

_That's out of the question._

_Is it?_

Harry glanced at the girl sitting on her robes, looking up at him in a totally casual manner, as though wearing practically nothing in his presence were the most natural thing in the (under)world. 

That was when Harry realised how stupid he must look, standing there with his arms akimbo and wearing absolutely nothing. 

"Okay then." He hastily sat down and pulled his legs up to hide himself as much as possible, though it seemed a bit pointless after having behaved like an exhibitionist so far. "Speak away. Why exactly would I need your help?" 

"You are going to leave the Underworld soon… or _hopefully_ soon. And you'll face my father. He won't be able to hurt you in body, but you know how good he is in psychological warfare… you will need a support on that level, and it will be me. I will be with you in soul to help you against my father." 

"Why couldn't you just leave the netherworld like Cedric did and help me like that?" 

"Because he can only approach his parents when they are sleeping. This way I'll be able to be with you when you are awake, too." 

"Do you mean you will be conversing with me inside my head?" Harry knitted his eyebrows. He didn't like the idea much; it would surely feel as though he were schizophrenic. 

"Only when you need conversation. I won't be peeking into your thoughts, but whenever you think of me, invoke me, I'll be there to help you. And when you no longer need me, the connection between us will be broken. Forever." 

Harry regarded her with his lips pressed tightly together. "Right. Just tell me one thing: why did we have to shag for this?" 

She let out a chuckle. "Weirdly, Hades and Persephone couldn't make up another way to create a spiritual connection between me and you - a living being." 

"I think I'll need some time to get used to the thought of this…" he said with a grimace. 

"Yeah, there'll be a lot to get used to." She nodded, starting to dress. "Oh, and Harry, if you start blaming yourself now that you cheated on your love… Ginny is her name, right? Well, if you blame yourself for this, then you're the biggest prat I've ever met." 

Suddenly some sort of whooping tore into the air and Harry realised he still wasn't wearing anything, so he quickly put on his clothes. 

The whooping got louder and louder as a little man in purple hat and robes appeared on the top of a small hill that had concealed Harry and Linda from the rest of the underworld. 

"Ah, Harry Potter!" The little man waved at him cheerfully. 

"Dedalus Diggle?" Harry's eyes widened. Then suddenly he remembered that the _Daily Prophet_ article had mentioned Diggle as the only lethal casualty of Voldemort's latest attack. 

"In person." Dedalus beamed and didn't miss the chance to shake Harry's hand. "Can you believe it? I've already spent two weeks down here, but I'm still beside myself with glee to be here! I totally love this place!" 

"Do you?" Harry blinked. 

"Yeah, it's bloody brilliant! Had I known Elysium was this spiffy, I would have come much earlier! Am I glad to have attended your memorial! By the way… is it true that you never even died?" 

"It is." Harry nodded, and squinted at Linda who gave him a 'see, you shouldn't have blamed yourself because of the attack, its only victim is happy to be here' look. 

With a slightly lighter heart, Harry let Mr Diggle lead him across the meadow, telling him every detail of McGonagall's heart-wrenching eulogy. 

* * * * * 

Trying not to think of having to spend another nine months in this damned manor, Ginny was munching the chicken brought to her by Blinky, the house-elf. 

"Blinky fears that mistress is going to get sick if mistress eats so fast. Mistress hasn't had any solid meals for two weeks, after all…" the house elf squeaked. "Blinky is afraid that mistress will not be able to digest her meal properly, that's why Blinky wanted to bring mashed potatoes only, to help mistress's stomach get used to solid meals slowly, gradually…" 

"Don't worry about my stomach, Blinky. I needed this, I've been starving!" Ginny said, licking her fingers after having eaten the chicken leg with her hands. She had felt so terribly ravenous that she didn't want to bother with the knife and fork. "You may go, Blinky. Come back for the plate in ten minutes." 

The house elf bowed and backed out of the room. 

Ginny was left alone with her thoughts again. Fed and watered, she stretched out on her pillow, letting her mind wander. The last time she had had a proper meal had been in Nikias' Tavern when Spiro put in an appearance, declaring that he wanted to kill Harry… Ginny had to smile at the memory – what could mad old Spiro be doing now? He no longer wanted to kill Harry, that's for sure… Ginny wondered whether the crazy Greek had ever truly wanted to kill Harry, or had he just thought he wanted to kill him? Well, this was something she'd never get to know, for she was never going to see Spiro again… 

What could Phaedra be doing? – Ginny thought. Phaedra hadn't come to Harry's memorial, so perhaps she hadn't read the _Daily Prophet_ announcing the ceremony, or even if she had, perhaps she just didn't want to come… 

Ginny wondered what the wizarding society of Great Britain would have said if they had met Mrs Potter… Besides her, her family and the Lupins no one here knew that Harry had been married… Was number 12 Grimmauld Place now Phaedra's property, unbeknownst to Phaedra and the rest of the world? It must be, Ginny thought, with Phaedra being the only person who could legally inherit Harry's properties. Surely little Amrita couldn't inherit anything, being illegitimate… 

Ginny heaved a deep sigh at the thought of the little girl. She felt truly sorry for her, having to live with Voldemort. She wondered whether Harry would ever have managed to get his daughter back if he hadn't died. 

She found herself almost wishing she could find the child, take it away from Voldemort and raise it as her own. Harry would be so happy if he knew his daughter was in good hands… 

_What am I thinking? _– Ginny chastised herself. _It seems that my child-deprivation has grown to such extent that I'd do anything just to have the opportunity to raise a kid… What will the next stage of this madness be? Will I wake up tomorrow and tell Draco to bring home any little bastard he has fathered?_

She shook her head. _I'm going crazy for sure_… Yet, somehow the idea of a little child woke new emotions in her… yes, she had always wanted to become a mother, but after all that had happened she had somehow become even more sensitive and longed for a child even more than ever before. 

"Dream on, Ginny," she muttered to herself and decided to drop off when Tonks walked in. 

"Wotcher, Ginny, I hope I'm not disturbing you," she said brightly, sitting down on the bed. Her hair was back to shocking pink and Ginny thought it suited her much better than black. 

"Of course you're not." Ginny smiled at her friend. 

"Great. I've met your parents, they said you had finally come round and your husband brought you home. I'm so happy to see you up and about! You have no idea how worried everyone was while you were lying in the hospital, as white as a sheet…" 

"Really, what sort of a curse hit me?" 

"We don't know." The young Auror shook her head. "It was something unfamiliar to the Healers of St Mungo's, they had absolutely no idea what they were dealing with, but thank heaven the treatment they randomly tried has worked." She sighed. "I don't know what would have become of your parents if you had never awoken. They almost lost George, too…" 

"I know." Ginny nodded sullenly, the image of the heavily bandaged person moaning in pain came to her mind again and she again felt dizzy. "But he's all right, isn't he? Draco said he'd begun to heal at last." 

"Yeah, fortunately." Tonks smiled. "Today's a wonderful day, Ginny: you are healed, George has started to get better, and I've just found out I'm going to have a baby!" 

Ginny's eyes widened. "Wow." 

Tonks grinned proudly. 

"Bet Remus was beside himself with glee…" The younger woman forced a smile. She felt happy for Tonks' happiness, but she felt something terrible deep inside her heart – something she knew to be envy. 

"Oh, he doesn't even know yet." Tonks winked at Ginny. "I'll tell him this evening. How do you think I should tell him?"   
"Buy a pair of little shoes and give them to him in a box?" the redheaded girl suggested. 

"Brilliant idea!" Tonks clasped her hands. "I just don't know what colour the shoes should be… pink or blue?" 

"Try a violent shade of violet," said Ginny and her friend burst into peels of giggles. 

As Tonks shook with laughter, Ginny was beginning to feel more and more sick. Perhaps she really shouldn't have burdened her stomach with such a heavy meal after not having eaten anything for two whole weeks… 

"Ginny, what…?" The young Auror stopped laughing as Ginny jumped out of bed without a word and ran for the toilet with a hand pressed over her mouth. 

"Er… Ginny? Are you all right?" Instead of a proper answer, retching could be heard. Well, in this case it _was_ a proper answer. "No, you're not all right…" 

Soon Ginny stumbled out of the loo, her face whiter than the wall she was leaning to in order to support her weight. 

"C'mere," Tonks helped her back to bed. "Are you feeling any better?" 

"Yeah," Ginny croaked. "Now that there's no food left in me again…" 

Her friend shook her shocking pink head. "Just like me in the morning… I keep throwing up too, you know… is it possible that you're… you're too…" 

"No," Ginny replied quickly. "I'm not. And I'll never be." 

"Why not, you're a married woman, after all…" 

"…and barren," Ginny muttered under her breath. 

Tonks pursed her lips. "Sorry. I had no idea. Had I known then I wouldn't have raved about… how untactful of me!" 

"No, don't blame yourself." Ginny patted Tonks' arm. "You couldn't have known. And I'm happy about you and Remus having a baby. In case you're looking for a godmother…" 

Tonks grinned. "I wouldn't think of anyone else in the role." 

"Good." Ginny leaned back into her pillow, massaging her stomach. "Damn it, Blinky was right. She told me I should eat mashed potatoes instead of chicken." 

"Oh, so that's the reason." Tonks nodded knowingly. "She was right you know. You have become unused to eating, my friend. However, I have a recipe of a wonderful pumpkin pie that will fix you in no time. I'll give it to your house elf before I go, shall I?" 

"That'll be great, thanks." Ginny smiled, thinking that she'd rather not eat anything any more. 

* * * * * 

"You aren't very talkative," Linda remarked as she and Harry walked down the hillside towards the Potters' cottage.   
Fortunately Dedalus Diggle had gone off to chase butterflies and left them to themselves, but Harry wished Linda would also leave him alone. He needed to think things over and come to terms with what had happened between them. 

"Er, no, I suppose I'm not." He shrugged, determinedly gazing at the grass instead of at her. 

"I know what's bothering you, and I can only repeat that you're a total prat if you feel ashamed now. You didn't want it; after all, I bewitched you with Persy's help. You've been had. Blame me, blame Dumbledore, but not yourself." 

"I'm not blaming you." He glanced at her. 

"Good, because I did it out of the goodness of my heart." She winked at him. "The last time I seduced you to help my father against you. Now I seduced you to help you against my father. There's a difference, isn't there?" 

"Definitely," Harry said with a would-be smile. "But it doesn't change the fact that I feel like shit. I love Ginny." 

"I know you do. And I wish you all the happiness in the world. She must be a very special girl to win your heart." 

"She is." Harry smiled, his smile being real this time. "But I fear she'll leave me when she finds out what happened between us." 

"Then don't tell her," Linda said. 

"It wouldn't be fair to keep it a secret before her. She deserves to know." 

"If she truly loves you, she'll understand. Try to look at things with a bit more optimism, Harry." 

"It's hard to be an optimist when Voldemort's out there, terrorising the world… but okay… I'll try to be less of a pessimist." 

They reached the gate of the Potter house and the first thing that caught Harry's eyes was his father winking at him. His glance shifted to Sirius, who gave him the thumbs-up. Lily rolled her eyes, conveying the message 'typical men'. 

That was when it struck Harry that everyone in the household (perhaps with the exception of Daffy) was aware what had happened between him and Linda. He pretended not to have noticed James and Sirius' unmistakable gestures of recognition. 

"Daddy!" Little Daphne stormed out of the house and threw herself into his arms. 

"Shouldn't you be in bed already, princess?" He gave her a kiss on her pudgy cheek. 

"I wasn't sleeeeeepy," Daffy yawned. 

"Not sleepy, eh?" Lily said. "Come to Lils, my angel, we are going to bed, shall we?" 

Harry let his mother take the child from him and carry her into the house. 

Sirius and James were still grinning at him and kept sending Linda meaningful looks, but she wasn't looking at their direction, and Harry looked away from them too, feeling that he was blushing. 

"Wonderful little girl, your daughter," Linda spoke up. "Well, I've got to go, mum's waiting for me." 

"Er, yeah, okay. Good night." 

"Sleep tight," she smiled at him and started down the path, when Harry suddenly called after her. She turned around to see him jogging towards her. "Forgot something?" 

"Yeah." Harry nodded, seemingly nervous. "My daughter made me think… er… you couldn't have possibly…?" 

"What?" 

"Well…" He scratched the back of his neck embarrassedly. 

Finally it dawned on her what he was driving at and she burst out laughing. "No, no… don't worry. You know, Harry, residents of the underworld can do anything, except two things: they cannot die… and they cannot create a new life, for they're dead, after all. Had they been able to have kids, you'd have at least ten siblings by now." She winked at him. Seeing his confused expression she added: "Lily told me that she and James are still quite active in that respect…" 

"Oh…" Harry grimaced. "I don't think I needed to know that." 

* * * * * 

That evening Molly came to visit Ginny at Malfoy Manor and talked her into eating Tonks' legendary pumpkin pie that was supposed to put her digestive system back into order. Molly had asked Ginny whether she wanted to go back with her to the Burrow, but Ginny politely turned her down, and no matter how hard her mother tried, she didn't manage to extricate a proper answer from Ginny as to why she didn't want to leave Malfoy Manor. However, she didn't give up, and came the next day, and the day after the next… but Ginny remained resolute. 

"I'm so unhappy about you being here," Molly tutted. "I know you're not happy in this house, and look at you, you're withering away here…" 

"I'm not withering," Ginny protested. 

"Oh yes, you are," snapped her mother. "You're as white as a sheet, my dear, and thinner than ever. Are you getting enough to eat, or is that terrible husband of yours starving you?" 

"Don't be ridiculous, Mum," Ginny sighed. "I get enough to eat. Only problem is that the food never wants to remain in my stomach." 

Molly knitted her eyebrows. "You're still having these problems, even after the pumpkin pie?" 

"Yeah. I suppose my digestive system got so unused to food that it doesn't want to accept any." 

"But this way you'll starve to death!" Molly said, scandalised. "You're coming with me this instant to St Mungo's, Virginia Weasley!" 

"I'm not going anywhere!" 

"Oh yes, you are! We'll have a Healer examine you. It's not normal that you can't keep any food down!" 

"I'm not going." Ginny folded her arms defiantly. 

"You will come, even if I'll have to haul you to St Mungo's!" Molly grabbed her daughter's arm and pulled her off the chair. Ginny tried to put up resistance, but she was so weak from weeks of not eating that she didn't manage to fight her mother's hands off. 

"Muuuum, I don't want to!" she wailed as Molly kept tugging her towards the door. 

"What is going on here?" Draco burst into the room. "Is she killing you or what?" 

"Killing? My own daughter?" Mrs Weasley grunted. "On the contrary, young man, I'm about to save her!" 

"Save her?" Draco raised an eyebrow at his mother-in-law. "From me?" 

"Oh, don't be such an idiot," the older witch spat. "Haven't you noticed your wife hasn't been able to eat anything since you took her from the hospital?" 

"Is this true, Ginny?" Draco asked with a worried expression. 

"As if you cared," Ginny replied defiantly, holding to her mother's arm for support, because she felt dizzy with hunger. 

"Actually I do care," the blond wizard pointed out. "I'm your husband if you haven't noticed yet."   
Ginny wanted to give him a snappy comeback, but at that moment the world turned black around her and Molly barely managed to catch her as she passed out.   
  
  


"Well?" Draco demanded as the mediwitch who had come to his urgent call from the nearby village exited Ginny's room. 

Molly scowled at her son-in-law, mad that Draco hadn't let her take Ginny back to St Mungo's, saying he could get help from elsewhere. She had a feeling that Draco didn't want to let Ginny out of his manor at all, fearing that she'd never come back if he did. 

"Well, you may come in," the mediwitch said and Draco entered, followed by Molly. 

Ginny was awake again, lying in her bed, deadly pale. 

"Is she very ill?" Mrs Weasley asked worriedly. 

"Well, no, I wouldn't say so." The mediwitch shook her head. "She's malnourished, that's for sure. Weak too, but overall healthy." 

"They told me in St Mungo's she was all right, otherwise I wouldn't have taken her home," Draco said. "But then, if she's healthy…" 

"…what's the reason for her sicknesses?" Molly finished his sentence. 

"Well-" The mediwitch's mouth tucked into a smile and she squinted at the reclining Ginny. "Let me congratulate you, Mr Malfoy. She's going to have a baby." 

Ginny, who had been listening to the mediwitch's every word, sat bolt upright. "No! That can't be!" 

The mediwitch turned back to her with a wide smile. "Trust me it can, Mrs Malfoy." 

"But… but I can't have a baby…" Ginny spluttered. "I'm infertile! I can't…" 

Picture after picture flashed into her mind: Harry kissing her, Harry loving her, jokes about frogs and misquoting Yoda… then Aesculapius' statue coming back to life… 

_'I'm sorry to interrupt, but you are healed, and you can no longer linger in my room. You have to continue your journey in the Row of Gods'_ – Aesculapius had said. 

_You are healed…_

"Oh my gosh…" Ginny whispered as she finally understood it. Asclepius's room had not only healed Harry's wounds, but her illness, too… it had made her fertile again… and she made love to Harry there, right after/during her healing… 

She was going to have a child… a child she had so long dreamed of… 

She felt tears coming. She hadn't cried when Harry died, she hadn't cried at the memorial, she had been practically suffering from her inability to cry… and now she was sobbing, her whole body shaking with the sobs, tears splashing down her cheeks, drenching her bedcover… 

She hiccoughed and looked up, her eyes meeting Draco's. His expression made the blood freeze in her veins. She had never seen such a mixture of hate, repulsion and blood-thirst on his face. 

Molly had clamped her hands over her mouth in shock and kept looking from her daughter to Draco and back… 

"Exactly Virginia," Draco whispered darkly. "_Oh my gosh_…"   
  
  


**A/N2: **I simply couldn't leave Gilderoy out of this fic! I love him too much! :D *hugs Gildy* 

_Silvercrystal77_: don't worry, Harry won't see Ginny in Elysium. 

_kitkat_: Draco didn't go anywhere - did he? *looks confused* 

_Myr Halcyon_: Draco will do dracoish things in the next chapter :) 

_DarkFlower2113_: I hope now you understand how Ginny got pregnant despite being barren :) 

~_Sally_: tell me you're still alive and didn't die from the lack of ITFA!!! 

_twinsofthesky_: I think your question is answered. Since Draco hasn't had a chance to sleep with Ginny for ages, he knows the baby is Harry's. 

_Brown*Pryde_: wait till the next chapter and you'll see ;) 

_TrixieFirecracker_: Harry still might have to sacrifice Amrita. Wait and you'll see ;) As for Ginny - no, she didn't feel morning sickness in chapter 20 yet, but now she did. No, Cedric won't use Ginny. Perhaps his parents aren't in comas anymore, but they are still brain-damaged. 

_Katrina Littlebird_: Harry is INVULNERABLE, NOT IMMORTAL - there's a HUGE differnce ;) Harry can't leave the underworld, not even in spirit form. What will happen to the memorial when people discover that Harry's alive? You'll have to wait till the epilogue to find that out ;) 

_rebekah1_: you're performing as Christine? How cool, I wish I could sing! No, Phaedra isn't evil at all. A bit nasty, quirky, but not evil. 

_Swanny_: I think the other nasty British kings are in Tartarus as well, but not playing Quidditch :) If you don't get the author alert but don't want to miss the updates, then join my yahoo group and set your membership thingie to special notices. 

_Mistri Tonks' Admirer_: you won't *see* Cedric, because he isn't important. Rest assured that he's trying to heal his parents. No idea why people can get hurt in the underworld, but I NEEDED to make them vulnerable, so accept it - it was a plot tool, nothing else. 

_Indigo Ziona_: yup, Draco is sort of good, but VERY deep down ;) Glad you liked Umbitch (and I love that name, LOL) 

_Kit Cloudkicker_: don't worry, some Tartarus people will be punished in a funny way - though not Barney but... not telling, you'll see ;) Yep, I've read many Greek myths (and not only Greek, my Egyptian, Indian, Inca, etc.) 

_Wood's secret lover_: I think Daphne's mind will evolve, but her body not. Sirius might be Scottish, dunno. Yes, Harry was a bit harsh on Sirius, but come on, his beloved daughter could have been seriously hurt, so he was angry. Now you gave me a horrible mental image by birds crapping on Harry's statue ;) I think Hagrid's dad died naturally. And no, Ginny hasn't found out that Harry's alive, she only got confused by the Thestrals. No idea about Fluffy, ask JKR ;) 

_C-chan1_: wow, that was the longest list of synonyms for 'die'. LOL. As for the HP movie's theme, imagine, when I first heard it, I thought it reminded me of something, and then mum said it was a lot like the music of Thorn birds. 

_Chelsea of the Moor_: I love the way you can link pics into the chapters on fictionalley. Shame it isn't possible here on ffnet! 

_hypnotic-babe_: your question is answered. 

_Anna Weasley_: I like Egyptian mythology too. Actually my first ever HP fic (that I wrote three years ago and has a much worse English than this one), The Greatest Scandal in Hogwarts History has a lot of Egyptian mythology in it. Give it a chance, perhaps you'll like it, despite its bad English and slightly childish beginning. After the tenth chapter it gets better. 

_Elfy19_: no, who's Joseph Cambell? 

_*katie_: invulnerability will help Harry in defeating Voldie, but it won't be THE thing that will defeat Voldie. Yes, the ritual hurts Amrita. Poor dear... 

_ruffled owl_: I put Henry VIII into Tartarus because he had several of his wives beheaded. What sort of person does such a thing? He must have been evil! 

_none_: Ginny hasn't found out, she still thinks Harry's dead. 

_TigHan_: Ginny doesn't need to be resurrected, obviously. Harry will defeat Voldemort, but in a very peculiar way. Can't tell yet ;) As for Amrita... who knows? She might not survive the story. 

_kneh13_: the curse isn't off Arthur yet, it will only be off him on the 20th June. Can't answer your other questions, sorry. You will have to wait and see. 

_Any last requests_: perhaps I'll send ITFA to inkpen when it's fully up on ffnet, schnoogle and SIYE. 

_Molly_: Lily wasn't teasing Harry, only James and Sirius - and well, guys are like that, aren't they? Especially when they are talking about sex and stuff like that. It seems natural to me that James would be particularly proud of his son's sexual abilities... Don't worry, Ginny won't be over Harry any time soon (in other words: she will never get over him ;) Harry won't have to choose between seeing his parents and Sirius - why would he? He will only have to choose between Amrita and saving the world, and that will be a tough decision to make. 

_Requiem to a Dream_: there's a Christmas song having '...if the Fates allow' in it, and you'll even see it in the next chapter :) 

_Inken_: indeed, Voldie doesn't have much of a chance to win :) 

_snowflakeginny_: I can't tell you who will be present for the baby's birth, you'll see in chapter 23. You'll see Phaedra again, don't worry. Cedric in the next chapter. 

_iNiGmA_: Harry WON'T like the statue of himself! Cedric in the next chapter. 

_sugareeSWEET-xoxo_: 31 chapters put together. So ten left. 

_apple-pie_: yes I put it as irony that the biggest evil's daughter is taking care of children. D/P? Later ;) What? Anger Voldie to death? LOL, noooo! :D I also hope ffnet won't have a breakdown soon again! But hopefully it won't have a breakdown before I end this fic, because there was always one big ffnet breakdown when I was posting each part of my trilogy. There was one in Scandal, one in Shame and one in Enemy too, so I wasn't surprised at all that there was one in Fates as well ;) 

_Sparkle Tangerine_: you'll see Phaedra again, but not yet. No, there won't be a cat-fight between her and Ginny. 

_Lucianna_: the Dark Mark hovered OVER the statue, it wasn't ON the statue. 

Also thanks to: _Wizzabee, torifire126, maureen, Houou Kazoku-Kaga, hi-voltage, HarryGriffinGirl, Sarahamanda, Written in Stars, Altec, moony*padfoot, MilesFromNormal, angeleyes53, dementorchic, JiNglebellz, Ally of Pirate's Swoop, goldenstar555, amidala, Allied-Inspiration_


	22. Blue Christmas

**Author's note in May, 2005: **this chapter, as many others in many of my fics has been reuploaded since it had lyrics in it that I had to delete (and I didn't trust ffnet's quick-edit). **Unfortunately this is the chapter that suffered most from the lyrics-removal, as it (and the whole fic) sort of lost its meaning this way. The lyrics of 'Have yourself a merry little Christmas' was VERY IMPORTANT in this chapter, to make the reader understand the meaning of the whole fic - at least I felt so. If you'd like to read the original version with the lyrics, you can do so in my yahoo group (link in my profile), on schnoogle, on SIYE, on checkmated or on phoenixsong.**

**

Chapter 22

**

Blue Christmas

_Today in the town of David  
a Saviour has been born to you,  
He is the Christ, the Lord._  
(Luke 2:11)

Ginny was tossing and turning in her sleep, images chasing each other in her dream - Harry in pirate attire, the _Hermione_ tumbling down into the precipice… the frog 'attacking' her and backing away from it… she joking about the 'eel', Harry countering that it wasn't funny at all… Harry kissing her, taking her to seventh heaven… her making a remark at Yoda being wrong about 'size matters not', then Aesculapius talking…

However, the Aesculapius in her dream was not only telling them they were healed and ought to leave, but he also looked directly into Ginny's eyes and said solemnly: 'Do you realise, my dear, that you have just conceived?'

Ginny shuddered, but did not wake up. 'It's impossible,' she said in her dream, 'I can't have a baby, I really can't…'

'Now you can,' Aesculapius replied, twirling his long white beard with a benign smile.

The dream-Ginny started to weep. 'What will my husband say? Not even Harry can help me now, he's dead…'

'No, he isn't dead, Virginia…' a new voice spoke up.

The dream-Ginny instantly knew that this voice wasn't that of the God of Healing… it was strangely familiar, though. Familiar, but she hadn't heard it for a long, long time…

'Who are you?' she asked.

'I'm Cedric, Ginny.'

'Cedric? Cedric Diggory?'

'That's right. I've come to tell you that your Harry isn't dead. He will return to you as soon as my job in helping my parents is done. When I can return to the Underworld and replace him on the Quidditch team of Elysium, he will be free to rejoin you. Until then, don't give up, Ginny. And don't forget he loves you. He loves you more than anything…'

The voice of Cedric was getting fainter by the second, and Ginny knew this must be because she was waking up…

'No, don't leave, Cedric! Tell me more!' her subconscious screamed, trying to hold onto the dream, but voices from outside her room were getting louder and louder, making it impossible for her to remain asleep.

Her eyes fluttered open as the squeaking of a house elf carried through her closed door. What was going on?

She rubbed her eyes and tried to remember the dream, but most of it was gone… except that part about Cedric. Without the shadow of a doubt this was the weirdest dream she had ever had: the dead Cedric Diggory had told her that Harry was alive, but playing Quidditch in the Underworld.

Nonsense.

It must have been the work of her overwrought mind, presenting her with the most unthinkable things… Harry - playing Quidditch - in the Underworld? Oh come on…

"Master, please, don't kick Blinky! Blinky didn't do anything wrong!" came a terrified yelp from outside and suddenly Ginny felt wide awake. Awake, and aware that the poor elf must be yelling at Draco… at a clearly mad and dangerous Draco…

And it suddenly hit Ginny why Draco was mad.

_I'm pregnant. And he knows it's not his child but Harry's because he and I haven't slept together for… what, half a year? Oh Merlin, help me… _In the next instant the door of her room practically burst open and young Malfoy, slightly staggering, dashed in.

"So!" he shouted at his wife, his eyes gleaming in a funny sort of way.

Ginny felt like answering 'so what?', but her voice seemed to have escaped somewhere and she couldn't utter a single word and just stared at her husband's face. She had seen Draco angry before, even livid, but now he was different… and it dawned on her why he was different.

"You're drunk…" she whispered as she found her voice.

"What if I am, eh?" Draco asked derisively, not even caring to close the door behind him. "Aren't I allowed to… have some fun, too? You seem to have had fun… with Potter. I'm entitled to have fun with… a bottle of… Firewhisky, aren't I?" He swung a half-empty bottle in his hand towards Ginny.

She instinctively slid lower under her covers.

"Afraid, aren't you?" said Draco with narrowed eyes.

"Why should I be afraid of a person who isn't accountable for his actions?" she said, trying to make her voice sound brave and nonchalant, but she didn't manage it and her voice wavered rather noticeably. Even the drunk Draco seemed to have noticed it.

"Playing the courageous little Gryffindor, eh?" he mocked, dropping the bottle of Firewhisky. It didn't break and rolled under her bed. "Soon you won't be this courageous! Now your mummy isn't here to protect you… she left last night… clearly to brag to your brothers that you were at last giving her a grandchild…" Draco's face contorted with disgust. "By now surely even the barman of the Leaky Cauldron knows it... I just hope… and you should hope too… that she had enough common sense not to… not to mention who the father of that little bastard is!"

"What d'you mean?" Ginny asked, her heart hammering in her throat.

"I mean, dear Virginia..." Draco leaned over her, so that she could clearly smell the Firewhisky on his breath. "…that the world mustn't know the real parentage of your…" He pointed at her stomach, as if searching for rude enough words to describe the child. "I've been thinking, you know…"

"Thinking? Rather you mean 'drinking', don't you?" she muttered, swallowing the lump in her throat and quickly looking around to see whether her wand was at hand, in case she needed to defend herself against her husband. However, the wand was nowhere to be seen.

"Thinking," Draco said, slumping down onto her bed, propping himself on his right hand that he had placed on the other side of Ginny's body, so that now she was sandwiched between his two arms, his face over hers, gazing down at her with a fierce expression. "To the world… this little bastard shall be a Malfoy… but only if it survives, of course…"

Ginny's eyes widened with fear. "If it _survives_?"

"Oh, yeah…" He nodded, the madness of a drunkard gleaming in his cold grey eyes, making them look enflamed with some twisted desire. "If the child has red hair… thus resembles you, people won't doubt that it's mine… it merely resembles its mummy…" He uttered the word 'mummy' in a voice mimicking that of a child. "However…"

Ginny already knew what was coming.

"If it has black hair…" Draco pulled his index finger in front of his throat, giving Ginny quite a good idea what to expect if her baby inherited Harry's looks. "Have I made myself clear, my dear?"

Clutching her covers so tightly that her knuckles turned white, Ginny nodded.

"Good." Draco slipped off her bed and dived under it for the bottle of whisky. "Oh, in case you're wondering where your wand is… I sent Bobby to collect it in the night. You aren't getting it back till the birth, in case you try to use it to… escape."

She gasped. "Am I a prisoner?"

"So to say, dear." Draco nodded and took a huge swig from the bottle. "I've placed alarm-charms on the front door, and on the back doors, too… so if you try and escape… they'll go off and I'll know it. I wouldn't try to escape if I was you… or a stray curse might hit you around here," he rubbed his abdomen with an evil smirk.

"You're crazy," she whispered.

"Crazy, d'you think so?" He laughed. "I don't think I am, sweetheart… any wizard in my place would do as I have… punish his wife for adultery."

"Adultery!" Ginny snapped, kneeling up in her bed. "As if you haven't fucked every second witch ever since we got married!"

"Just because you weren't giving me what they were!" he shouted back. "And I not only mean an heir, I mean… you've been a frigid ice queen, Virginia… true to your bloody name! You were so cold you could have frozen a penguin; I wonder what Potter saw in you… I hope he didn't have much delight in you, too."

A sarcastic little smile appeared on Ginny's face. "Just to inform you, Harry enjoyed every second with me in his arms… and I enjoyed it too. _He_ managed to give me what you never could and never cared to give me! If you were half as good as him…"

"I'm a thousand times better than him!" howled Draco as his bottle-free hand hit her across the face with such force that she fell back onto the sheet and her mouth started to bleed.

"I hate you," she whispered, wiping blood off her lips.

For a moment Draco looked down at her, panting, then turned on his heels and ran out.

* * *

Draco was livid and both the alcohol and Ginny's last words were working in him, blurring his vision so much that he didn't even notice the house elf that had been eavesdropping on them.

He ran up to his own room and slammed the door shut, making a painting of Narcissa Malfoy fall to the floor, its glass-case shattering.

He leaned against the door for support, and slowly slid down into a squatting position, idly playing with the bottle.

_I hate you…_

He couldn't think clearly, given the effect of the whisky, but he pretty much understood what these three words meant.

_As if you haven't fucked every second witch ever since we got married!_

Oh, well, she had a point there…

His mind wandered off to someone whom he hadn't thought of for weeks… the last woman he had slept with. Phaedra.

She had been more willing than any of his previous whores, but wait… Phaedra had only done it out of pain, because she had just lost her husband…

Draco's free hand clenched into a fist.

Ginny hadn't wanted to give herself to him, because she loved Potter.

Phaedra willingly gave herself to him, but only because she loved Potter…

"Isn't there a fucking witch who loves _me_, not Potter?" he shouted and he chucked the whisky-bottle through the closed window.

* * *

_Christmas, 2003_

Virginia Malfoy gazed out onto the snow-covered plains surrounding Malfoy Manor. It was a bright and sunny, but piercingly cold day. Icicles were hanging from the roof, scattering the rays of the winter sun in all directions like crystals, making them glitter on the window-pane and shine into Ginny's room, painting the walls with all colours of the rainbow.

Ginny saw crows fighting in the air. In wintertime, the park was filled with these disgusting creatures that not only stained the whiteness of the snow, but also irritated the manor's inhabitants with their constant croaking. They were even considered a bad omen if they turned up somewhere.

Well, Ginny thought, her predicament couldn't get any worse, not even with a whole horde of crows circling around Malfoy Manor. Absentmindedly she slipped her hand to her still flat belly, gently caressing it. The embryo in there was too small to let its mother feel its moves, if it moved at all… yet Ginny tried to convey some sort of a message, a mental caress, hoping that her child could sense it. She wished she could assure the little one that everything was all right - at least as long as the baby was inside her, its features, especially its hair colour not yet definable. The little one surely didn't even have hair yet, Ginny thought with a small smile. Then, as Draco's words came to her mind, the smile vanished from her face and a lump rose in her throat. What if the baby looks like Harry? Draco will dispose of it, then…

Ginny shuddered. Why, oh why did this have to happen? And why now? True, she had always longed to become a mother, but the timing couldn't have been worse. Harry dead, Ginny's father still subject to The Fates Charm… Her child would be born about a month before her 'captivity' ended… if only she had got pregnant a month later, then she'd have a chance to break free from this damned marriage and give birth to her baby in peace, not having to fear that Draco would kill it, or that he'd kill her father if she fled.

She heaved a deep sigh at the thought of her father. She hadn't seen him, or any of her family-members since the mediwitch had announced her pregnancy to her husband. Draco had made it impossible for people to visit her and had also forbidden her to leave the manor. She knew there was no point in trying to escape, for she was endangering her own health and that of her unborn child if she tried. Then again, if the baby would be killed after birth, then did it matter at all whether it died now or later?

Ginny shook her head. _I'm going mad for sure. What kind of a mother am I, thinking such things? Of course my baby will live, I'll protect him, no matter what Draco wants to do… if I have to defend my baby with my bare hands, I'll do so… if he tries to harm my little one, I'll… I'll kill him, I swear. No one will harm my son, no one!_

Without even noticing, Ginny had always thought of her child as 'he', as though she had known it'd be a boy. She had tried to imagine the child on several occasions, but something deep down inside of her prevented her from forming a clear picture. Her subconscious was trying to hinder her in envisioning the baby, because in her subconscious she feared that it'd look like Harry… unruly black hair, green eyes and that cute, sometimes cocky, sometimes sheepish grin Harry used to wear…

No, surely her baby boy wouldn't look like Harry - would he? Ginny willed herself to imagine the baby with the Weasley looks, but she just couldn't. Whenever she envisioned a giggling child with flaming red hair, the image dissolved in some sort of a mist…

It was no use trying to imagine the baby at all, she concluded. If she didn't want to go mad before the birth she had to keep telling herself that nothing would go amiss and she'd have a chance to leave Draco with her child intact. _If only it were already 20th June, the day of independence! _- she thought, but she knew that the nearer the child's birth drew, the more she'd be afraid of it. One half of her heart wished it was June already and the other half wished it could remain December forever, and that May with the child's birth would never arrive…

She got shaken out of her reverie by some clinking noise. She looked in the door's direction to see Blinky the house elf enter with a box full of silver crystal orbs. Two other elves were carrying a beautiful pine tree whose branches were still half-covered with snow.

"We have charmed it, mistress, so that the snow will never melt," announced Bobby the house elf.

"Thanks." Ginny nodded. "You may go now."

"But… mistress! Surely mistress doesn't want to decorate it on her own?" Bobby's huge eyes widened even more.

"Why not? I'm not an invalid, am I?" Ginny snapped at the elf, making it cringe. She was still mad at Bobby for having taken her wand, even if he'd done it on his master's orders.

"But… mistress! You are expecting!" squeaked Blinky.

"And? Surely my husband would be only too happy if I fell down from the ladder whilst decorating and miscarried, don't you think?" said Ginny sarcastically, quite sure that the elves were totally aware of the real parentage of her child-to-be-born.

"Don't talk like that, mistress!" the third elf called Wrinkly wailed, tears brimming his eyes.

Bobby nodded. "Please, mistress, don't talk like that!"

"Yeah, you should be happy, it's Christmas after all!" added Blinky. "What about a bit of music?"

"Great idea!" chimed in Bobby and hurried out, only to return a minute later with what looked like an old Muggle record-player.

"Since when do the Malfoys have Muggle stuff?" Ginny asked, surprised. She had never seen this record-player before.

"Since Mistress Narcissa got one from her Uncle Alphard," replied Bobby. "Though she never listened to it, but chucked it into the store-room."

Blinky had unearthed a disk from somewhere and put it on the record-player. The room immediately was filled with _O Come All Ye Faithful_. The music managed to get Ginny's mind off other things, and she started to hang the silver baubles onto the pine's branches, humming the songs herself. The elves kept passing her the baubles, so that she didn't need to bend down for each piece. She knew they could have found better things to do than to help her, thus she found their caring truly touching. Little Bobby seemed the most enthusiastic in helping her - as Ginny suspected - to make up for the nicked wand.

She was attaching a sparkly silver star to a branch, humming the next song: _Have yourself a merry little Christmas_. The song, that contains the line 'if the fates allow'. **(A/N: how horrible a sentence! But this is the only way I could leave the lyrics out… _sighs_. Really, go, read the original version on the sites mentioned in the A/N at the beginning, because this sucks this way!)**

_Crash. _

The three elves turned in her direction to see her gazing at the snow-covered branch, tears running down her face. The crystal star lay by her feet, shattered into a thousand pieces. The record-player kept playing.

"M… mistress?" Blinky muttered, tugging at Ginny's skirt.

"We all will be together… if the Fates allow…" whispered Ginny. "The Fates didn't allow."

"Mistress?" Bobby spoke up in a worried voice. "Are you… are you feeling all right?"

Instead of replying, Ginny slowly sank to the floor into a crouching position and bent her head over her knees, the curtain of her vivid red hair concealing her face from the elves. However, from the shaking of her body the elves knew well enough that she was crying.

The three elves exchanged a meaningful look and without a word they went to close their weeping mistress into their arms. Ginny looked up a bit, her teary eyes darting from Blinky to Bobby to Wrinkly, and seeing the compassion in their bulging, tennis-ball-like eyes, her mouth tucked into a grateful little smile. She reached out and pulled the three elves even closer to herself.

* * *

"Blimey," Fred said, dropping his fork back onto his plate before he had even touched the meal. "I can't eat. Sorry Mum, I'm sure it's delicious, but…"

"Don't apologise, Fred," Molly sighed, putting down her knife. "I can't swallow a single bite, either. My poor, poor Ginny…"

Arthur reached out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder as she sobbed into her handkerchief.

Ron and George exchanged a sour look and put down their forks.

Hermione shot Ron a rather nasty look that said 'Christmas dinner is more important for you than your sister?'

Ron heaved a sigh and propped his chin into his hand, gazing at the tablecloth on which Father Christmas's sledge, pulled by his reindeer, was doing circles.

"What about breaking into Malfoy Manor?" he said finally.

"Don't be an idiot, Ron," Percy said superciliously. Penelope, who was next to him, nodded eagerly. "You know that Malfoy must have used all sorts of Dark Arts to keep unwanted visitors out. Not even our owls managed to penetrate those barriers. Surely you don't want to end up cut into four pieces, do you?"

"Okay, okay, it was just an idea," Ron grunted, feeling like flattening the stupidly grinning Father Christmas with his plate. Unfortunately the picture was two-dimensional, so getting smashed by a plate wouldn't have made it any flatter.

Silence ensued at the Weasleys' dinner table, only broken by Molly's renewed sobs.

"I seriously don't understand you," Percy spoke up. Everyone glared at him, even his mother stopped crying. "I mean… I'm sorry for Ginny too, Malfoy's a horrible man, but _Ginny_ asked for trouble… had she been able to control her raging hormones, then she wouldn't have got into this predicament, and…"

"Perce, do us a favour and shut up," George growled.

"Anyway, Ginny thought she was barren when she slept with Harry, so you can't say she was irresponsible," Ron interjected.

"Perhaps not irresponsible, but definitely immoral," Percy replied. "Whether she loves Malfoy or not, he is still her lawfully wedded husband, and has every right to demand unconditional fidelity from his wife…"

"Unconditional fidelity, my ass," muttered Fred while Penelope sulked, not wanting to look at her husband.

Mrs Weasley, who had always chastised her children for using swear words, sniffed and nodded. "For once I have to agree with you, Fred, dear."

"Wow." Ron's eyes widened. "Does this mean I'm not getting my annual telling-off today for not having married Hermione yet?"

"Well, now that you remind me, it'd be nice if you two legalised your relationship at last," said Molly. Hermione shot Ron a 'next time rethink it three times before you open your big mouth' look. Ron sent her an apologising stare.

"I suppose," Hermione said quietly, "that magic can't help Ginny now. We can't go to the Magical Law Enforcement either, because Malfoy would surely talk himself out of the charge of keeping his wife locked up… I think the only thing that could still help her is a prayer."

Molly's eyes filled with tears again as Hermione joined her hands.

"Our Lord, you look down at us from heaven and hear all our words… please, listen to us today. Ginny is in great trouble, and we cannot help her. You, who sent us your Son to deliver us from our sins, please, help her to deliver her child unharmed and save her from her husband…"

"…yeah, and if you have the time, teach that bastard Malfoy a lesson, will you?" added George.

"George!" snapped Mrs Weasley.

* * *

"This one too, Daddy!" shouted Daphne, swinging a huge pink orb in her hand. Harry reached down for it and hung it on the Christmas tree.

"Well, it's ready, I think," he said, stepping back a bit to admire his work. "Not bad at all…"

"Too bad Christmas spirits never really come here," said Sirius, pointing out the window at the green meadows. At Elysium it was spring forever, the trees never shed their leaves and snow was totally unknown.

"As long as Christmas is there in your heart, you don't need snow and cold to feel the spirit of the holidays," a familiar male voice spoke up. "I hope we're not disturbing."

Harry looked at the door where two figures had appeared: Albus Dumbledore followed by Linda.

Harry's stomach gave a jolt. He hadn't met Linda ever since that ominous day back in September. She had tactfully avoided him, knowing that her presence would make him feel uneasy.

"Of course not." beamed James. "Come in, come in, and make yourself at home. Happy Christmas!"

Soon little Daphne got tired and Lily put her to bed, while the adults engaged in an animated conversation about the Christmases of old times.

"And remember when Padfoot made Snivellus wear that Father Christmas outfit?" James said between bouts of laughter. "The greasy old git couldn't get rid of the beard and the furry red cap with the pompom that kept shouting Ho-ho-ho!"

The one-time Marauders and Albus were having fun, but Harry felt bad about listening to stories about his father and godfather being nasty to Snape, and he could see it in his mother's eyes that Lily didn't approve of it either.

When Sirius embarked on a tale about him and James dropping a dozen dung bombs on Lucius and Narcissa, who happened to be snogging behind the greenhouses, Harry decided he needed some fresh air.

The cool night breeze fondled his face as he wandered through the dewy grass. "Christmas, eh?" he whispered to himself sarcastically. Not that he didn't enjoy spending the holidays with his parents, but he longed to be back in the normal world, longed to know that Ginny was all right, longed to share jokes with Ron and Hermione… it hit him how much he had missed his two best friends during his five years of hiding. For a fleeting moment even Phaedra crossed his mind; he wondered how she could be feeling right now, having to celebrate Christmas without her husband and daughter. Then it occurred to him that his daughter had never even seen a 'proper' Christmas with snow before, because Greece had been too warm for that.

With a sudden thought he pulled his wand out of his pocket and made a jab at a nearby tree. In the next instant the tree's branches were covered with beautiful, sparkling snow.

"Excellent," he muttered, pointing his wand at a bush this time. In ten minutes the landscape around the Potters' house didn't resemble Elysium at all, but a perfect Christmas card.

"You forgot to hang a holly-wreath on the door," a voice spoke up behind him.

"Oh. Hi," he replied, without turning around to look at Linda.

"Nice job, by the way. Daffy will love it."

"That's why I did it." Harry shrugged.

"You're a wonderful father, do you know that?"

Harry made a grimace. "I don't think I am. Had I been a good father, then I would have let Amrita die rather than letting Voldemort bring her up."

"You did what you thought was all right back then," she replied. "I thought we talked this over, didn't we?"

"Yeah, we did." He hung his head. "But I can't help it; it keeps resurfacing and nagging me… especially on holidays like this. Can you imagine how our daughter could be spending Christmas? I doubt if she ever got a present from anyone, not even a knobbly pair of socks or a torn tissue…" Picture after picture flashed into his mind, Uncle Vernon tossing his ugly mustard-coloured socks at him, getting a curt note from the Dursleys with only a toothpick attached to it. _Linda, you don't understand anything. At least I got something from the Dursleys, but what could Voldemort give her? Perhaps he's doing that bloody ritual on her right now! Her life's a hell, don't you understand?_

Yes, I do came the answer.

Harry shuddered and looked back at her. "What was that?"

"You addressed me in thought and I responded," she replied.

"But… I didn't mean to address you, I just…"

"But you _did_ address me," Linda reminded him. "You thought of my name, and I heard all that came after it."

"Whoa. I'll have to be careful what I think of then," he said. "And you should cut back on the eavesdropping."

"I wasn't eavesdropping!" she pointed out.

"Yes, you were!"

"I wasn't!"

"Yes, you w…" Harry couldn't finish the sentence, for a snowball mysteriously hit him across the face. "Hey, you little…"

"Bet you can't hit me!" she laughed as Harry started gathering some snow from a nearby bush.

"Bet I can…"

She ducked his snowball, squealing with laughter. It had always been hard for him to imagine that this girl was Voldemort's daughter, but it had never been harder to imagine than now. Harry grinned at the thought of Voldemort himself pelting Wormtail with snowballs… Nah. Even a vivid imagination had its limits.

"What's going on here?" Sirius's head appeared in the doorframe only to get a huge snowball into his left eye. "Hey, that was below the belt!"

"Was it?" shouted Linda. "Then come and return the favour!"

"Bloody well I will!" yelped Sirius and burst out of the house, followed by James and Lily, Dumbledore bringing up the rear.

Soon all six of them were engaged in a furious snowball-fight, waking little Daphne up from her sleep.

She stumbled out of the house and had to rub her eyes to make sure she wasn't still dreaming.

Six adults… playing like little children. Evil, evil adults! They had put her to bed while they went to play! Daffy decided that she was really mad at her family.

* * *

Amrita was gazing out the window, her chin propped in her palms. She couldn't sleep; she just couldn't. The sky outside was pitch black, only the dancing snowflakes made it seem brighter. She shivered - her room hadn't been heated properly. Wormtail had come in the afternoon and cast _Incendio_ at the fireplace, but his magic had long worn off and the little girl felt cold. She pulled her checked quilt tighter around her body and clutched her old vampire doll to herself. This doll was her only toy, she had got it a long time ago - it seemed to her as though she had always had it. She suspected that it must have come from Peter, for no one else ever bothered to give her anything.

She knew it was some holiday called Christmas right now, but she simply didn't know what it was like - she had heard Goyle and Macnair mention it on a couple of occasions, but she didn't really know what the word 'Christmas' meant. Two or three days earlier Macnair had brought his little son along with him, and Amrita had eavesdropped on the boy chattering about the presents he'd get for Christmas. Actually it had been the first ever time Amrita had seen a child of her own age, given that she had always been locked up in the Death Eater Headquarters (or what exactly did Grandpa Voldemort call the place?).

Amrita longed to go outside and walk around in the snow - she had done it only once before, under the supervision of that terrible woman whom she was supposed to address as Lady Lestrange. She had always wondered why that hag had demanded to be called 'lady' because, to Amrita she rather seemed a rude old wench.

"Daddy," she whispered, lifting her eyes to the sky. "Can you hear me? I know you're dead now, Wormie told me so, that's why I think you could perhaps see me from above… Yes, I'm sure you're in heaven now, not in hell. You know I think Grandpa would perfectly fit in hell, but you surely got to be in heaven… And you're together with Mummy, right? Wormie once told me that my Mummy was looking down at me from heaven and taking care of me… does this mean that you too are taking care of me from above, Daddy? If so, could you take me away from Grandpa? Pretty please? I promise I'll be a very good girl, I won't ever talk back, I won't be choosy and I'll eat everything, I… I promise whatever you want, just take me away from here!"

Had Harry heard this, his heart would have bled for sure…

As did Wormtail's, who had just been about to bring Amrita a cup of hot cocoa and overheard her when he opened the door.

Instead of entering the room with the cup, he closed the door as silently as possible and tiptoed away.

Half an hour later, the little girl decided to get into bed, hoping that the Dream Fairy would come soon. Pulling her vampire doll to herself, she closed her eyes but before she could truly fall asleep, there came some sort of a noise from the direction of the fireplace.

_Surely a boggart, or a troll, or a banshee!_ - she thought, hastily pulling the covers up to her eyes, peering at the fireplace in a possibly unnoticeable-to-the-monster way.

However, what she saw as the greenish smoke thinned was a man dressed in red clothes with white trimming. The figure had long, white beard and was carrying a red sack over his shoulder. It didn't look dangerous at all.

"You're not a boggart, are you?" Amrita asked, feeling heartened all of a sudden.

The man-in-red jumped. "Oh… you are awake? Er… no. I'm no boggart. I'm… I'm Father Christmas, see…"

"Father Christmas?" The girl knitted her eyebrows. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh… haven't you heard of me yet?" Father Christmas asked.

"Not really. Actually… I don't even know what Christmas is." Amrita shrugged.

"Well then… let me tell you a story about a little boy who was born over 2000 years ago, in the far town of Bethlehem…"

Amrita listened to the story about Jesus' birth with her mouth agape.

"Was the boy really God's Son?" she asked.

"Yeah." Father Christmas nodded. "And since God presented the world with his Son, we have this custom of giving each other presents at Christmas. And that's my task to bring the good little children presents."

"And how have you come here? Through the fireplace?"

"Well…" Father Christmas nervously tugged at his beard and it almost fell off. He hastily readjusted it, hoping that the child hadn't noticed. "I came through the chimney. See, I travel around the world on Christmas Eve and bring every good little kid a present. I use a sledge with eight reindeer."

"Reindeer?" Her eyes widened. "Can I see them? Where are they?"

"Well, I have parked my sledge on the rooftop, of course. They are waiting for me there. So, I have to give you my present now and go, because I've got to bring presents to millions of other children."

"How do you have enough time to reach every child in just one night?" asked the girl seriously.

"Well… I'm using the Time Freezing charm, you know. Everything outside the house I'm currently visiting is frozen in time. But shhhh… don't tell anyone! This is our little secret!"

"I won't." Amrita nodded solemnly. "Can I have my present now?"

"Oh, yeah, the present." Father Christmas bent down to search for it in his sack, and his pompom-hat almost fell off his balding head. He caught it in the last second and pulled it down to his eyebrows. "Here it is." He fished something out of the sack and handed it to the little girl. "But promise me you won't show it to anyone, especially not your grandfather."

Amrita opened the package and let out a small squeal. It was a female vampire doll. "Now at least my Draky will have a mate! I've always wanted him to have a wife, he was so lonely… I promise I won't show it to Grandpa, but… may I show it to Wormie, pleeeeeease? He'll love it and he won't tell on me!"

"Do you er… trust this… Wormie?"

"Oh, he's my bestest friend in the world!" Amrita said enthusiastically.

For a second Father Christmas' eyes seemed to be watering, then he nodded and turned away to blow his nose.

"Do you have a cold, Father Christmas?" Amrita enquired. "If yes, then we could ask Wormie to make you a hot cocoa, it will help. You could take some to your reindeer, too."

"Oh, no, thanks… I've got to go, dear. Happy Christmas!"

"You too! Thanks for the doll!" Amrita waved at the red-clad man, who threw something into the fireplace and disappeared. Amrita, who had never seen Floo powder before, had no idea what it was. The inhabitants of the 'Death Eater Headquarters' had always come through her door, after all.

"See, Draky, you've got a matey now. We'll call her Morticia, shall we?" she told Dracula, her vampire doll. Clutching both vampire dolls, she slumped back into her pillow. "You know Draky and Morty, I love Wormie. Even though beard and red things don't suit him well…" With that she fell asleep, dreaming about shining angels singing above a little boy lying in a manger.


	23. About a Boy

**Author's note: **whatever happens, read on!   
  
  
  


**Chapter 23**

**About a boy**

_"Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one."_   
(Vladimir Nabokov)   


_21st May, 2004, a cafeteria in Athens_   


Spiro was idly playing with the tea-spoon in his coffee, cursing the day he had first thought of joining the Circle. Had he not wanted to join it so badly, then his sister wouldn't have wanted to join too. Had his sister not wanted to join, then she would never have met Jason Stephanides, and if she had never met Jason, then Jason wouldn't have got her pregnant. 

Damn Jason. 

Spiro felt like he could have strangled the man if he had had the physical power, which he did not. Anyway, he was stirring his coffee, nervously. His sister Leto had gone into labour a couple of hours earlier and Spiro simply couldn't bring himself to stay in the Circle Headquarters and listen to her screams, or to watch Jason hurry to and fro with basins of hot water and stacks of dry towels. 

He could have asked Phaedra to let him join her in her quarters, but ever since her husband's death, Phaedra had been totally unbearable. Well, from a certain point of view Spiro could understand her; no one in her condition would have been less grouchy, but – even if Spiro didn't admit it to himself – she scared him. 

After telling his sister 'now you see why you shouldn't have got involved with that buffoon Jason,' and her throwing ancient Greek vases at him between two contractions, Spiro decided to put as much distance between himself and Leto as possible.   
So, playing with his tea-spoon in a Muggle cafeteria, he listened to the talk of a rather burly blond man and an ugly, bony woman at the next table. Not that their conversation was anything of interest to him, but it still engaged his attention a bit and took his mind off his sister giving birth and the urge to throttle Jason, who had still not proposed to her. _How dare he??? _– Spiro fumed in himself. 

The waiter stepped to the couple at the next table and gave them the bill. The blond bloke handed the waiter his credit card. 

"Sorry, but we do not accept credit cards, Mr… Dursley," the waiter said with a rather bad English accent, reading the name from the blond man's card. 

Spiro's eyes widened. 

"Typical, I've been warned that this place was the end of the world, but I never thought I couldn't use a bloody credit card here," Mr Dursley fumed. 

"Dudley dear, I think I have some cash," the woman told him and started searching for her purse in her handbag. 

"Thanks, Priscilla, honey." The blond man smiled at his companion as she paid the bill. 

As soon as the waiter passed, Spiro sprang up from his seat and walked over to the Dursleys' table. 

Dudley looked up at him with a frown on his fat face. "What do you want? Haven't we just settled the bill?" 

"Oh, no, I'm no waiter." Spiro shook his head. "I've just overheard that you were called Dudley Dursley, sir, and I was wondering whether you were the same Dudley Dursley who died last June?" 

Dudley and Priscilla exchanged a look suggesting that they both thought the chap was mad. 

"Do I look dead?" young Dursley asked. 

"Well, not really… I think I phrased the question wrong." Spiro grabbed a chair from his own table and pulled it to this one to join the Dursleys. "Please, don't take me for a fool, Mr Dursley, but I happened to know someone who went by the name Dudley Dursley for a while. Some say his real name was Harry Potter, but…" 

"Harry?" Dudley gasped. "That bastard was using my name?" 

"Yes… and he happened to die using your name, so I was wondering whether you knew him." 

"Well, I bloody well knew him," Dudley said with disdain. "He was my cousin. Dead, is he?" Spiro nodded. "Hm, truth be told, I'm not at all surprised. He was always looking for trouble… how did he die?" 

"Drowned, as far as I know." Spiro shrugged. 

"Serves him right," Dudley replied. "No wonder he did; my parents kept paying for me to have swimming lessons, but Harry never got any. He didn't even deserve them, the little idiot." 

"Exactly, darling," cooed Priscilla. 

"Er, this is my wife, Priscilla." Dudley turned to the Greek wizard. "We are on honeymoon right now, you know. And your name…?" 

"Papafotiu. Spiridon Papafotiu." 

"Do tell me more about my dratted cousin's death, Mr Papafotiu, will you?" Dudley said delightedly. 

A tall man who had just arrived at the cafeteria rubbed his hands together upon hearing the name. As Spiro embarked on the story about how he had thought Harry had impregnated his sister and had also murdered a Sicilian, the man's mouth tucked into a smug grin. "Papafotiu, eh?" he whispered. He had been following this chap for a while because he had found that the boy resembled the one on the Diggory's photo. However, until now, he hadn't been a hundred percent sure that this was indeed the person they were looking for. "The Dark Lord will be very pleased… very pleased, indeed." 

* * * * * 

Around the same time in far-off Great Britain Ginny doubled up in pain. "This can't be…" she wheezed, gritting her teeth. "Too early… two weeks early…" 

When her first contraction ended she finally realised that she was standing in a pool of amniotic fluid – she hadn't even noticed it, the pain had been too intense. She stumbled to her wardrobe to get a dry dress and with great difficulty changed into it, then sank onto the bed, her mind reeling. She had so hoped this wouldn't happen for another two weeks – could this mean something was wrong with the baby? Her heart clenched at the thought of her child being ill, and then she realised that the child's health condition wouldn't even matter if it came to the world with black hair… 

A picture flashed into her mind: a picture of Draco pointing his wand at the newborn and shouting _Avada Kedavra_… 

A wave of hysteric sobs came over her, tears splashing down her front in a little cascade – however she didn't care to change into a dry dress again. 

That was how Blinky found her a quarter of an hour later when she entered with Ginny's lunch. 

"Mistress!" the house elf hastily put the plate down on Ginny's bedside table and ran up to her. "What has happened, Mistress? Is Mistress feeling all right?" 

Ginny stopped sobbing for a second to look at the elf, but instead of replying she clutched at her bulging belly, moaning. 

"Oh no! Is it time?" Blinky gasped. 

Ginny nodded mutely, gritting her teeth against the howl of pain that wanted to escape her mouth. "Can… can you help me?" she stammered a minute later. 

The elf's ears drooped. "Blinky is very sorry Mistress, but Blinky isn't a trained midwife… Blinky has only seen the birth of her little sister, but that was ages and ages ago!" 

Ginny reached out and grabbed the elf's arm. "I don't want you to help me with the delivery… but go and get that mediwitch… the one who came here last time." 

"Blinky is sorry, but Blinky has heard that the mediwitch moved out of the village…according to Wrinkly it was Master who paid her to leave… because she had been the one to tell you your pregnancy… Master knew the mediwitch suspected the child wasn't his, and…" 

"…and Draco doesn't want a single soul to get to know whose the child is," Ginny finished the elf's sentence.   
Blinky nodded. 

"Then you have to help me. Even if you don't know much about deliveries… please, Blinky. Don't leave me… I can't do this alone." 

"Blinky won't leave Mistress, Blinky promises," the elf said compassionately. "Blinky will get Bobby and Wrinkly to help, too… if Mistress doesn't feel uneasy about having them here…" 

Ginny's mouth tucked into a sad little smile. "I have gone through enough not to feel embarrassed in front of two male elves. But… what about Draco? Is he here? He'll know I've gone into the labour, and perhaps he'll want to be here…" 

"Blinky does not know about Master… he left an hour ago, perhaps he will be back in the afternoon, perhaps he won't…"   
Ginny wished that Draco wouldn't return, at least not until the baby was born. 

* * * * * 

"Good catch, boy!" Godric Gryffindor gave Harry the thumbs-up as the crowd in the Elysium stands roared and brandished their banners. 

Harry grinned at the Captain of his team, feeling happier than he had in a long time. For the third time since he had arrived at the Underworld, he had managed to get the Snidget from under Brutus' nose. Brutus, who had considerably fewer teeth after their first match against each other, was scowling at him, flanked by the fuming Rasputin and Salazar. 

Harry ignored the dark glances from the members of the defeated team, and let the cheering crowd suck him in. There were still many people who wanted his signature, and more and more came from Tartarus – obviously the inhabitants of Tartarus had had enough of Dolores Umbridge gloating about having Harry Potter's autograph and wanted to get one for themselves. As a symbol of their respect, some of them handed Harry something what vaguely resembled a dog biscuit, and even though Harry thought it was rather a weird custom, but he didn't have the heart to refuse to accept the 'presents'. Perhaps the people in Tartarus were all thinking like Aunt Marge, believing dog biscuits to be a wonderful and satisfactory gift. 

It again took hours for the crowd to thin, and it was already dusk when Harry set off for the Potter house. His parents had already gone home, his mum surely awaiting him with a delicious treacle tart. His mouth started to water at the mere thought of getting a treacle tart. No one could bake such wonderful tarts as Lily… 

The evening was beautiful, balmy and extremely romantic with rose-bushes growing all around, their sweet fragrance filling the air. On evenings like this, Harry wished more than ever to be able to leave the Underworld at last and rejoin Ginny. Really, he realised, in less than a month Ginny would be free from The Fates Charm and they'd have a chance to start a new life, together… 

_Damn it, Cedric, why can't you return at last?_ he thought bitterly, when suddenly he heard a scream inside his head:   
*On your right, Harry!* 

He turned right to see three trollish figures emerging from the shrubbery, each holding huge boulders. It had all happened so fast that not even with his 360 degrees vision would he have been able to notice the source of danger quick enough. 

Without thinking he whipped out his wand and shouted_ Reducio!_ at the boulders zooming in his direction. The huge rocks exploded into little pieces, some of them hitting the trolls (or whatever they were), aggravating them. The three huge figures lunged at Harry with their fangs bared, growling menacingly. Harry wasted no time shouting _Tempus Glacietur_! and making his attackers become petrified. 

"Well, that's settled," he murmured, as something huge and extremely heavy knocked him off his feet.   
He couldn't move, for the heavy thing was standing/sitting/lying on his back. He had dropped his wand after the impact and couldn't see it anywhere near him. 

"Cerberus, you bad doggie!" came an angry voice as Charon the boatman of the Styx hurried towards them. "What did you think you were doing, leaving your post and attacking dead people?" 

"Er… actually I'm not dead," Harry said, "but I'd be grateful if you told this oversized puppy to get off me…" 

Charon pulled a dog biscuit out of his pocket and threw it over his shoulder. Cerberus immediately jumped off Harry, searching for the biscuit in the grass. 

"Harry, are you all right?" Linda ran into view, panting. "I saw… I saw those things attack you and wanted to shout at you, but someone grabbed me from behind and pressed their hand over my mouth, and… Oh, I was so worried…" 

"I'm fine." Harry sat up. "Good that I got this invulnerability thing, otherwise the puppy would have crushed me… as must have been the intention of the person who set him on me." 

"Do you think someone wanted to use my doggie to harm you?" Charon breathed. "Oh, such evil people! I bet it was someone from Tartarus, only they are twisted enough to lure my puppy away from the river… wonder how they did it?" 

"With a heap of dog biscuits, I presume," Harry suggested and emptied his pockets, letting at least six biscuits fall onto the grass. So, the Tartarus people's 'presents' hadn't been presents after all… they had been given to Harry with the intention of making him smell of dog biscuits. "I wonder who the master-mind behind this was?" Harry remarked. "Salazar? Or one of the Borgias? Hm. Wait till I tell people that someone wanted to do me in using dog biscuits." 

"I'll report the case to Hades at once," Charon said. "What about them?" he pointed at the frozen trolls. 

"They won't wake till morning, I used a long-term version of the Time Freezing charm on them," replied Harry. "Hades can send people to collect them tomorrow." 

After Cerberus had picked all the fallen biscuits up from the grass, Charon led him away, telling him off for letting evil people lure him away from the Styx. 

"Did you see your attacker?" Harry turned to Linda. 

"No. They grabbed me from behind and held my head in place so that I couldn't even turn it to look at them. When you froze the trolls they suddenly let go of me, surely afraid of you… they might not have known you had a wand. I turned around immediately to look at them, but they had disappeared into the bushes, and your well-being was more important for me than running after them…" 

"Was that you who warned me?" he asked. 

"Yeah. I couldn't shout, but I could send you this mental message." 

"Thanks." 

"Not that you really needed it." She shrugged. "I just forgot for a second that you were invulnerable." 

"I tend to forget it, too." He grinned. "Care to join me in my parents' house for a treacle tart?" 

"No thanks." She shook her head. "I don't want to disturb you." 

"You don't disturb us. Linda… I know you think I hate you for what happened, but… I don't. I've had eight months to think it over, I am and neither mad at you, nor do I feel ashamed about it. Not anymore. I won't let it ruin our friendship. Not everyone can say that one of their friends is Voldemort's daughter, can they?" 

She grinned back at him. "Where's that treacle tart?" 

* * * * * 

Forked lightning crossed the sky, illuminating the grounds around Malfoy Manor, and also Ginny's room for one or two seconds. After the thunder, everything went silent and dark again and, the only source of light was that of the five candles standing on Ginny's bedside table. 

The storm had started sometime around five o'clock and didn't seem to want to subside. 

"You're doing fine, Mistress," Blinky squeaked, cold sweat beading on her forehead. 

"Fine?" Ginny croaked. "It's been… going on for… what, ten hours now? I'm… not… doing fine!" 

Another flash of lightning illuminated the room and its occupants – Blinky got frightened as the sudden light fell on Ginny's face – it was deadly pale and sweaty, her otherwise glorious red locks plastered to her temples and hanging in a tousled mess onto her shoulders. What scared the elf most was the amount of blood covering the sheets around her mistress, who had started to bleed hours ago. Hours ago… and yet the baby just didn't want to come… What if her mistress bled to death? Something indeed must have gone wrong with the baby, for Ginny should have started pushing long ago, yet she simply couldn't, for the contractions didn't come frequently enough. 

"Hold out, Mistress, please, hold out!" Blinky muttered as Wrinkly and Bobby entered with a basin of hot water and dry towels. Blinky immediately started wiping Ginny's clammy forehead. "Does Mistress want some water?" 

"No… no, Blinky… I just want… want this over…" the young witch whispered, barely feeling strong enough to talk. 

"You'll get over this, Mistress, just hold out a little more!" Bobby said. "Think of… think of beautiful things, like… holding your baby in your arms!" 

_Holding my baby in my arms… and Draco coming and tearing it out of my grip…_ Ginny would have started to sob again at these thoughts, but she didn't even have enough strength to cry. _Think of beautiful things… What? Think… think of Harry… Harry… Can you see me now? See what you've done to me? What we've done together? I shouldn't have joked about the 'eel', I know, perhaps this wouldn't have happened… Oh Harry, why didn't I die together with you?_   
  


Shortly past midnight the summer storm was still raging outside, the blustery wind buffeting the window-panes of Ginny's room, but Ginny didn't hear it anymore. 

Blinky, Bobby and Wrinkly looked at the limp figure lying in the bed, blood-stained covers twisted around her body. 

"The poor, poor thing," breathed Bobby. "She could have had such beautiful life…" 

"Yes," Blinky sniffed. "But she won't… without her son, she won't…" 

Wrinkly heaved a deep sigh. "It was such a beautiful little boy…" 

"It was." Bobby nodded and reached down to snatch a little bundle up from the bed, from beside the unconscious Ginny.   
"Let's… let's bury the poor thing before Master returns… God knows what he'd do with the body…" 

"…especially because of its looks." Nodded Blinky, pulling the dirty sheet completely over the tiny boy's face, concealing his mass of thick, black hair that even in its sticky state stood out in every direction… "I'll… I'll stay with Mistress, you two go. And be silent. We don't know whether Master has returned yet… better he doesn't know…" 

The two male elves nodded and sidled out of the room with the motionless body of Harry Potter's son. 

* * * * * 

Harry found it hard to fall asleep after the attack – he and Linda had told his parents about it, and the Potters and Sirius had been exasperated. 

'Of course it was Salazar's doing, I'd bet anything it was him!' Sirius had slapped the table irritably while Lily crumpled her handkerchief nervously. 

'Do you realise they wanted to kill you?' she had said. 

'I do,' Harry had replied, 'but of course they don't know they can't kill me.' 

'Just watch out, son, they may have realised now that they can't harm you, so perhaps next time they'll try something else… for instance they might put hemlock into your drink when you don't notice… remember, you can be killed by poisons, for they operate from inside.' 

'I'll be careful,' Harry had promised solemnly and told the others that he was sleepy. 

However, no matter how drowsy he felt, sleep eluded him for at least an hour, and when he finally managed to fall asleep, he was having nightmares and kept tossing and turning in his sleep. He was having a nightmare about a raging storm, flashes of lightning criss-crossing the sky, and Ginny… Ginny suffering. _What's the matter, Gin? _he asked in his sleep, but no answer came. _Gin? Gin? What's hurting you?_

Suddenly the dream changed and instead of seeing his lover's face contorted with pain, he saw his daughter – his living daughter – standing in front of him, looking up at him with green eyes dilated with fear. 

'Don't be afraid, child, we'll get it over soon, it won't hurt,' Harry told her, his voice high-pitched and cold. _I'm Voldemort again_, he thought in his dream and willed himself to wake up and not watch what that evil, twisted being was doing to his daughter, but something made it impossible for him to wake up. 

The little girl in front of him obediently held out her arm, her whole body shaking with fear. Harry pointed his wand at her wrist, and she screwed up her face when the wandtip touched her skin, for a gash opened on it and, her blood flowed freely out of her vein. Harry's spider-like left hand clutched her hand, while another – clearly female – hand held a little pot under Amrita's hand, to catch the dripping blood. Harry saw that Amrita's lower lip started to bleed as well, for she had bit into it hard to hold back the hiss of pain that wanted to escape her mouth. "I see you have learnt to control your hysterics. Very good, Lord Voldemort cannot stand wailing kids." With that Harry made a swish with his wand and the gash on the girl's arm closed, as though it had never been there. 

"I haven't wailed," Amrita muttered, then cringed, realising that she had just talked back to her grandfather. 

Harry felt anger surge up in him and wanted to punish the insolent little brat, but suddenly Goyle ambled into the room, holding a roll of parchment. 

"M'lord, this has just arrived from Rodolphus." 

"Read it out, then," Harry instructed the burly Death Eater, who seemed rather frightened by the prospect of having to read. "All right then, Bella, you read it out." 

Bellatrix swished her wand, making the parchment soar into her hands from Goyle's grip, then cleared her throat and started to read out the letter: 

_"My Lord,_

_I have good news for you. With the help of the photographs you provided me with from the Diggorys' home, I managed to find a person resembling the young man in the photo. Today I overheard a discussion between this fellow and some Muggle, and the fellow revealed that his name was Spiridon Papafotiu…"_

"Aha!" Harry shouted delightedly. 

Bellatrix carried on: 

_"…It is fortunate that Mrs Diggory had a quite recent photo of her nephew among all those decades-old pictures. I'll keep following Mr Papafotiu, but I'd like to ask you to send me reinforcements, I wouldn't try to capture the man alone – I don't want to risk him slipping out of our hands again._

_Sincerely, Rodolphus."_

"Good, very, very, very good!" Harry said, feeling such satisfaction as he hadn't felt for a long time. He started to laugh, his laughter echoing in the dimly-lit chamber… 

Suddenly he sat up in his bed, gasping for breath. Had his – Voldemort's – laughter woken him up? 

"I can't believe it… I was him again… and he's after Spiro… Why? What does Spiro have that Voldemort wants?" Harry scratched his head, trying to solve the riddle, but he was way too tired, thus unable to think clearly. He bent his head on his drawn-up knees, stifling a yawn. He tried to remember every single detail of the dream, but all he could recall was that Voldemort wanted to catch that idiot Spiro (Harry already felt sorry for the poor chap) and that Voldemort had again used Amrita's blood. And Amrita had talked back to him! "That's my girl," Harry whispered with a grin, feeling very proud of his daughter. 

He had a feeling that before the Voldemort-dream he had been dreaming about something else… but he no longer remembered what. 

* * * * * 

Voldemort's laughter filled the chamber, and Amrita backed away from him, still clutching her wrist. Although the cut had disappeared, it still hurt her, like some phantom pain. 

In the next instant her grandfather stopped laughing – and not like someone usually stopped laughing, but so suddenly that it startled her. 

She glanced at the Dark Lord's face to see astonishment on it – or rather was it horror? Could Grandpa Voldemort become horror-stricken? She had never seen him like this… it was scary. 

"My Lord…?" Bellatrix spoke up. 

"Impossible…" Voldemort muttered. 

"What, my Lord?" asked Macnair. 

"I've sensed him. He's been looking into my mind again… That wretched little toe rag, he's still alive!" 

"Who?" Goyle blinked. 

"Harry Potter, you idiot!" 

Amrita clapped her hands over her mouth to muffle the squeal of happiness that she had almost let out. 

"A… are you sure he's alive, My Lord?" Wormtail stammered. 

"Of course I am, you fool!" howled Voldemort. "The dead can't eavesdrop on my thoughts, only the living can do it! And Potter has just done so. Do you know what this means?" 

"It means he knows about your plans to catch that Greek chap," Bellatrix said calmly, though her complexion was rather pale. 

"Exactly," grunted the Dark Lord. "He knows it and he can head us off. We mustn't lose any time; we have to catch this Papafotiu as quick as possible, in case Potter gets the recipe of immortality before me!" 

* * * * * 

"He's… dead, isn't he?" Ginny whispered to Blinky as she regained consciousness. 

"Shhh… don't speak, Mistress, don't tire yourself out even more. Sleep," the house elf said soothingly. 

"Tell me, Blinky. I have to know." 

The elf's ears dropped and her tennis-ball-like eyes filled with tears. "Blinky is so, so very sorry, Mistress! The baby never cried, never moved… he was stillborn… the others went to… to bury him… before Master comes…" 

"So… it _was_ a boy, after all…" Ginny said in a wavering voice. She tried to turn in the house elf's direction, but she didn't have strength for the slightest movement. "What… what did he look like?" 

Blinky swallowed the lump in her throat. "Oooooh, Mistress…" She began to sob, her hands hiding her ugly little face.   
"What was he like?" Ginny repeated the question. 

Blinky sniffed and wiped her nose on the pillowcase she wore for a dress. "He was… he was beautiful, Mistress." 

"What… what was his… hair like? Red… or black?" 

"B…black, Mistress. Jet-black…" 

A single tear ran down Ginny's cheek, but she didn't reach up to wipe it away, for she felt too exhausted to even lift an arm.   
"He was lucky, then." 

"Lucky?" Blinky's huge eyes widened even more. 

"Lucky," repeated Ginny. "He died naturally. I'm… I'm happy he died like this… not by Draco killing him… that would've been an… unworthy death… for a Potter. A Malfoy has no right… no right to defeat a Potter… my little one hasn't been defeated…" Ginny's voice faltered as a sob broke out of her. However, no tears came with it - her body was shaking with the sobs, but her eyes remained dry. 

"What's going on here?" a drawling voice spoke up. Neither Ginny nor Blinky had noticed that Draco had opened the door.   
Ginny didn't answer and the elf continued weeping. 

"I asked something!" Draco snapped. "_Lumos!_" 

His wand cast enough light to illuminate Ginny's bed. Ginny narrowed her eyes against the sudden, blinding light and squinted up at her husband with an expression very unfamiliar to Draco. He had seen her angry, he had seen her sad, even hateful, but never like this. It looked as though all these three emotions had mixed on her face, along with something indecipherable, something that gave her an almost ethereal quality. For a second Draco thought he was facing Ginny's ghost, or a Ginny-shaped boggart that would at any second lunge at him… 

Finally his stare slipped to her stomach that was slightly flatter than it had been before. The air was filled with the smell of sweat and congealed blood. 

"Where's the child?" he demanded. 

"Where you wanted him to be," Ginny replied quietly. 

"What'd you mean?" he furrowed his brow. "Where is he?" 

"Five feet… under the surface of earth… I presume," she said, her voice so cold that it sent shivers down Draco's spine. 

"Buried?" 

"Why… what would you… do to someone… who died?" 

Draco looked at his wife's eyes. They weren't their usual warm chocolate brown, but pale brown, almost translucently so… and glassy, no emotions mirrored in them. 

"How did it happen?" 

"He was stillborn, obviously," Ginny whispered, staring at a dark corner, unblinkingly. 

"Oh…" Draco felt like saying 'sorry' for a second, then he realised they were speaking of his wife's illegitimate child, a mere 'by-product' of his wife's frolicking with Potter… damned be Potter, damned be his memory, and damned be everyone who loved him!!! 

However - not even Draco understood how or why - something prickled in his chest and he found it suddenly hard to swallow, for some mysterious force had compressed his gullet… Anger swelled up in him, but, he realised, he wasn't mad at Ginny, nor particularly at Potter, but… at himself. 

He was mad at himself for feeling sorry. For the second time in a mere nine months he was feeling pangs of remorse. The last time he'd felt it was after bedding Phaedra and sneaking out while she was sleeping. Back then he'd thought that Phaedra was so different from his wife… now it occurred to him that his wife and Phaedra had a lot in common: they both had had children from Potter, and they both had lost their children and Potter. 

"What… what was he like? Did you see him?" He turned to Ginny. 

"No, I never saw him…" she replied with such a dreamy expression that one would have easily mistaken her for Luna   
Lovegood, "but Blinky says he was like Harry… I'm glad he died." 

"Glad?" Draco thought he'd heard wrong. Perhaps the storm raging outside had been too loud and made him misunderstand her words. 

"Yeah," she replied, still not looking at him. "At least this way you couldn't kill him." 

Draco shuddered. Had Ginny really believed he'd wanted to kill the baby? Draco pursed his lips. Had he ever _really_ thought of killing the child? Perhaps he had, but he'd only said that in his anger when he was first getting to know that Ginny had indeed cheated on him… also, he'd been drunk and he hadn't been thinking clearly… 

"I'm taking you to St. Mungo's," he said finally. 

"Why?" She sent him a particularly piercing look. 

"You're a mess, Ginny, you need a medical check-up, and…" 

"…all I need now… is clean clothing… and to be left alone," she replied vaguely. "Get out." 

Draco had never been the type to be bossed around, but this time he didn't waste a moment to comply. He headed for the door, but stopped in the doorway and doubled back. "Er… should you need something…" 

"…then I'll call the elves," Ginny said, her eyelids drooping. Barely had he closed the door behind him, when she fell into an exhausted sleep. 

* * * * * 

The wind lashed at their pillowcases as they fought their way through the night, one of them carrying the baby boy Potter (or Malfoy? He didn't even have a name!), the other one holding two spades. 

"This will be the right place," Bobby spoke up and placed the tiny bundle on a patch of grass, under a willow. 

They both started to dig, their faces and 'clothes' totally soaked as they threw spadefuls of earth over their shoulders, raindrops coursing down their faces, mingling with occasional tears, both raindrops and tears dripping from their long noses… 

"What was that?" Wrinkly asked suddenly. 

"Bobby thinks it was thunder," Bobby replied. 

"No… it was different." Wrinkly shook his head. 

"A cat?"   
"A very soaked cat, eh?" 

"Bobby doesn't know." Shrugged Bobby and carried on digging. 

"Wrinkly heard it again," Wrinkly said. 

"Now Bobby has heard it, too… But what the…" He looked around, searching for the source of the noise. Then his glance fell upon… "Save us…"   
  
  


**A/N:**

_kneh13_: this IS Wormtail's way of paying the debt to Harry. 

_Brown*Pryde_: glad you liked my series :) Harry will leave the Underworld in the next chapter. No, Phaedra doesn't love Draco - yet. But never say never ;) 

_jnpsmama_: LOL, the story about your daughter and HP2 was funny :) You know what? My secondary beta said the same - the she found the Daffy scene very well-written and she almost cried at the Amrita scene :) So what happens to Amrita? Can't tell yet! 

_Wizzabee_: Harry loves Ginny with all his heart. In my stories he will always love her. He didn't feel a thing for Linda. 

_Imalil2sarcastic_: LOL, did your parents play with video games after they put you to sleep? That's funny :) 

_Wood's secret lover_: I simply love writing long glances :))) 

_Kristen Michelle_: I'm glad you're still hooked :D 

_Tyster_: if making me blush was your intention, then you succeeded ;) 

_Mistri Tonks' Admirer_: but we can't close out the possibility that Ginny was healed right when her ovulation began. Also, somehow I love using coincidences in my fics... Up till this chapter I haven't mentioned what the baby would look like, you surely mistook it for Daniel. 

_Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: blonde kid? Nooooo! 

_torifire126_: yeah, I've been accused of torturing the characters on more occasions than I can remember ;) I'm mean, I know! 

_goldenstar555_: Wormtail survives this fic. 

_Eclectus_: Cedric's parents's condition is very difficult, so that's why he needs so much time to help them. And no, you won't see how he does it, for it's not integral to the plot. It's left to your imagination. 

_EowynDernhelm_: Harry leaves the Underworld in the next chapter. I didn't want the baby to have red hair, it's better to have black, because it annoys Draco more. I hope that some day publishers will really be dying to publish my works - but first I have to write some original fiction :)) 

_Molly_: I suggest you re-read what Amrita muttered at the end of chapter 22, then you'll realise that it wasn't Santa who visited her but Wormtail dressed up as Santa. No, people in the Underworld really can't hear people talk to them. 

_moony*padfoot:_ IMHO stands for In My Humble Opinion. 

_Natalia_: thanks for your kind words. Don't worry, Draco will end up being happy. 

_Katrina Littlebird_: yup, Peter was the Santa :) Dumbledore/Linda? LOL. But no, he's way too old for her, he could be her great-grandpa! 

_Paige_: thanks for the lesson on Helen Keller! She really sounds like an amazing person :) 

_Hedwig55_: no, Harry doesn't know about Ginny's pregnancy. You're not the only reader who said that the last chapter made them cry :)) 

_TrixieFirecracker_: you never forget to ask that D/P question, do you?;) Actually Wormtail IS paying his life debt to Harry BY taking care of Amrita. Harry was never unfaithful to Ginny - at least not with Linda. He had no idea what they were doing, after all... 

_Arwen_: thanks for the lesson on Helen Keller! Yep, Veni, vidi, vici means I came, I saw, I conquered. Yay for Julius Caesar! ;) Sure, feel free to email me :) (and no, I don't really like Bush) 

_Chelsea of the Moor_: Amrita will have to suffer at least until chapter 28. After that? Who knows? *trying to look enigmatic* 

_C-chan1_: thanks for the info on Arty. Glad you liked the mental image about Santa-Snape. Does your mum like HP? Mine simply loves it (and now Artemis too!) Yeah, the sentence about the dying cat is indeed funny! :D 

_Requiem to a Dream_: I think it was a sub-conscious thing that I gave Harry's two daughters similar personality traits *shrugs* 

_Abluebird225_: no, Draco isn't barren. The reason why Ginny couldn't get pregnant earlier was that she had had a childhood disease, but now she's healed out of it by the pond. 

_Inken_: glad you liked Father Christmas!Wormie :)) 

_maureen_: don't worry, it perfectly made sense :) 

_SnowflakeGinny_: I can't tell you what happens to Wormtail, you'll have to wait to find out till the epilogue *evil grin* Draco has always been rather rude to Ginny. R/Hr don't get married in this fic, but there will be hints that they will, later. 

_*katie_: I simply liked the idea of vampire dolls. Also, I thought that if Voldemort saw that the kid had a toy, then he'd be mad if he realised that she was playing with a Barbie, but a vampire doll wouldn't irritate him that much. Yes, you _were _wrong about the baby... I think no one saw that coming. 

_Embyr Black_: Harry leaves the underworld in the next chapter. 

_MilesFromNormal_: Artemis Fowl is a book series by Eoin Colfer. Artemis (despite the female name) is a twelve-year-old Irish boy - a genius and criminal mastermind. He decides to kidnap a fairy and demand ransome, but he must battle a whole hord of fairies in order to get the gold. His personality reminds me slightly of Draco, but I like him way better, especially in the second book where he turns out to be a real hero. The Artermis Fowl universe is very interesting, creative and shows a totally new perception of magic. And it's even funny :) 

_Any last requests_: okay, perhaps I'll post the corrected chapters to TIP. 

_sugareeSWEET-xoxo:_ I wouldn't say I have a soft spot for Wormtail, I just believe that he isn't totally evil. 

_blaubaerin_: no, there wasn't a Thorn Birds movie, just that prequel thingie. 

_Silvercrystal77_: yup, Wormtail was Father Christmas. 

_hypnotic-babe_: as you see, Draco wasn't really serious about wanting to kill the baby. 

_Elfy19_: Wormie takes care of Amrita for both reasons. I thought it was pretty obvious that I was shipping Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione, since all my fics have those two ships. However, I sort of like Harry/Tonks smutfics as well. Are you an Artemis Fowl fan too? Cool. Actually I already got the answers to my questions from others, but perhaps we could discuss Arty in emails? (I don't know many people who like Artemis, so I'm happy to find new persons who like it). 

_iNiGmA_: I always send an update mail into my yahoo group when I update, I haven't forgotten it once. Perhaps you just didn't get the mail because either yahoo or your server was malfunctioning. Or do you get author alerts? Because that can be faulty too, sometimes it just 'forgets' to notify you of new chapters... 

_DarkFlower2113_: you won't be seeing the Fates again, no need for that. The kid's hair couldn't have been blond, since Draco wasn't the father. Or perhaps it could have been blond, if he'd inherited the hair colour from Lily Potter's mum (IF Lily's mum had blonde hair like Petunia), but not very likely. 

_Indigo Ziona:_ I don't remember when I last had a snowball fight... perhaps with my grandpa, ages ago. Good old grandpa, he loved playing in snow and always took me to sledging too. Yeah, the Snape-Santa may sound familiar, but I didn't take it from Olivia's fic, given that I wrote the last chapter sometime in October. Actually I found it quite amusing when Olivia wrote her fic, because I was immediately reminded of this particular scene in chapter 22. 

_Elizabeth Darcy_: yup, there was a chance that the baby got dark red or even blond hair (if Lily's mum happened to be blone like Petunia), but I thought it'd be more likely for him to inherit one parents' hair colour. 

_fan_: more H/G soon, don't worry. As for Ginny helping Amrita - you may never know. 

_robbie_: Draco/Phaedra? Perhaps ;) H/G will meet in three chapters' time. 

_Puzzle_: it took Cedric about nine-ten months to help his parents. I might write another HP fic, but not any time soon, for my next fanfic project is an Artemis Fowl fic. Actually it's quite refreshing to write something else for a change, I've been writing HP fics for almost three years now! 

_Hues of Blue_: I already got the required information on Artemis Fowl, but you know what? We could be email friends and discuss AF privately - what do you think? If you'd like to be my email friend, then drop me a mail to the addy that's in my bio. I don't have many friends who have read and like Artemis... I heard of Barry Trotter, even read a bit of it on Internet, but I wasn't exactly taken by it. Perhaps because it's rather hard for me to understand subtle humour in a language that isn't my native one. Astound you with another famous fic? LOL, I don't think so. Especially because my next fic will be Artemis not Harry, and Artemis fics don't have that many readers... that fic isn't likely to be 'famous', but I'm still enjoying writing it (yup, already started it!). 

_hi-voltage57:_ can't help, I LOVE making Peter human :))))))) 

_TigHan_: no, the baby came in May, not June. June would have been the due date, but he was premature. At first I didn't like Artemis either, but the second book was simply cool and I fell in love. Then I re-read the first and liked it too. So I WILL write that fic, you don't have to read it. Nope, no original fiction. Perhaps some day, but if I write one, then it'll be a book and I hope it'll be published. Not on ficpress but for real :) 

_Myr Halcyon_: please read my answer to Indigo Ziona. 

Also thanks to: _dementorchic, Sarahamanda, kitkat, angeleyes53, Altec, Alexander Phoenix, SiriuslyDelirious, denaumo, Lioness-07863, LuluIsALobster, water-lily-113, apple-pie, Written in Stars, Gaia, luisa_


	24. Liberty

**A/N**: sorry about the late update, but my secondary beta couldn't do this quick enough, given that this is the longest chapter in the whole fic, even longer than chapter 15. Hope you enjoy it, this is my mum's fave chapter :) 

To those who wrote me 'hey, why did you kill the baby?', please re-read the last few lines of chapter 23. The baby _isn't_ dead. He cried, that's what the elves thought to be a cat meowing. If you're reading an AgiVega fic, you've got to 'read between the lines' sometimes ;) 

Also thanks to everyone who contacted me in connection with Artemis Fowl. You're great, people! :)) It was funny getting to know that the evil guy in Eternity Code was a Spiro ;)   
  
  


**Chapter 24******

**Liberty**

_"Liberty is liberty – not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience."_   
(Sir Isiah Berlin)   


Inside his little Hogsmeade house that he had bought with the money he had earned as the first ever elf writer, Dobby was dreaming of wonderful, new, mismatched socks. There was a knock on the door. 

"No thank you, Dobby is not buying anything else but socks," he murmured in his sleep, trying to cling to that particularly delightful fragment of dream about owl-patterned socks. 

The knock was repeated. 

"Yes please, Dobby would like that warm, fluffy one with the tiny owls…" 

Knock again. 

Dobby pulled the covers over his head. "Dobby's not home!" he shouted. 

"Then who's home?" came a question from outside. 

"No one!" 

"Then who just said 'no one'?" 

Dobby sighed and slipped out of bed, realising that he couldn't go back to sleep and buy socks in his dreams with someone constantly hammering on the door. With a huge yawn, he clicked his fingers to ignite some candles, then shuffled to the door and opened it. 

"Bet you like Winnie the Pooh," he told the two figures standing outside. 

"Er… Winnie the Pooh?" one of the figures asked. 

"Never mind." Dobby waved dozily. "Come in." 

Wrinkly and Bobby entered the little house, the latter slightly stooped, as though carrying something. "Um…" Wrinkly began, "sorry to bother you so late…" 

"So early, you mean," Dobby pointed at the clock on the wall. It was three o'clock in the morning. 

"Wow, some clock you have there," Bobby said admiringly, gazing at the clock that had twelve little Harry Potter heads all around its dial. 

"Oh, yeah…" Dobby sighed. "Poor, poor Harry Potter… Dobby liked him so much!" he dropped himself on his bed, looking utterly miserable. "Harry Potter gave Dobby his first socks ever! Harry Potter set Dobby free! Dobby always wanted to repay him, but… nothing whatsoever Dobby did made up for that wonderful, wonderful deed Harry Potter did to Dobby!" 

"Well, you wrote a book about him, that isn't nothing," Wrinkly pointed out. "_My Hero Harry_ was definitely the best book Wrinkly has ever read." 

Dobby looked up, his eyes shining happily. "You liked it?" 

"Of course, everyone liked it." Bobby nodded. "Certainly we had to keep it a secret from Master that we were reading it, Bobby thinks he might have whipped us if he'd known… But, if you still think that writing a book about Harry Potter's deeds hasn't been enough of a repayment, then Bobby has another idea…" 

"What sort of an idea? Dobby wishes nothing more than to properly return the favour to Harry Potter, but Dobby fears he will never have the chance!" sighed the owner of the little house. 

"Perhaps you will," said Wrinkly wisely. 

Dobby frowned at him. "What do you mean? What can Dobby do for him? For a dead man?" 

"Well…" Bobby pulled something out of his pillowcase, "take care of his son." 

* * * * * 

Two weeks had passed since Ginny had given birth, and she was recovering – at least physically. Her soul was far from recovered, and she doubted she'd ever be the same little Ginny she had been before… then again, the 'little Ginny' had died the day she had been forced to marry Draco Malfoy. With the 'little Ginny' had died her trademark cheerfulness and mischief, the qualities that had made her resemble Fred and George so much. For those couple of days spent with Harry in Greece she had thought her old self had been resurrected, but the second life of 'little Ginny' had been short – it had died together with Harry. 

Now she doubted that her old self would ever return again – not with so many wounds in her heart. 

She thought the best tactic to make her heart ache less was to not even think of Harry and their son. _Why should I keep tormenting myself with it? Our baby's a little angel up in heaven, he's rejoined his father… they don't need me to feel sorry for them. They're together. Wish I could be with them…_

She shook her head. _I'm not thinking of this anymore, or I'll be going mad!_

The door opened to admit Draco. 

"What do you want?" She folded her arms and leant back in her seat, looking up at him challengingly. 

"Can't I visit my wife when I feel like it?" He knitted his eyebrows. He hadn't visited Ginny for over a week. He had taken her to St. Mungo's the day after she gave birth, and she had spent three days in the wizarding hospital recuperating. Her parents and brothers had visited her there and tried to talk her into going back with them to the Burrow, but she'd said no. _Just another three weeks_, she had thought, _I won't have to live with Draco for more than three weeks… but I mustn't leave him now, not when he can still cut the hair… I have to be patient._

And she had been patient. She had returned to Malfoy Manor with her husband and hadn't left her room at all, just played the obedient little wife. 

"Yeah, you certainly can," she replied coldly. For another two weeks, she added in thought, feeling triumphant. _Oh, you have no idea, dear… In two weeks I'll be leaving you and this damned house forever!_

"Why are you looking at me like that, Virginia?" 

"Why, how am I looking at you?" 

"Dunno… weird. Sort of…" 

"…murderous?" she said sweetly. "Because that's how I feel…" 

"Then I'm happy you haven't got your wand back, darling." He smiled, though his smile wasn't genuine, it was a nervous one. 

"And when will you give it back to me?" 

"Not for a while." He shrugged. 

"Why not? You know that I'm not exactly a danger to you. The worst thing I could do to you is cover your face with batwings again." 

Draco grimaced. "I'd rather you didn't. But the real reason why I'm not giving it back to you is that it would help you escape." 

"Hah. Am I a prisoner again?" 

"Just for a while…" 

"How long?" she demanded. She really needed all her inner strength to remain seated and not try to scratch his eyes out. If she didn't get her bloody wand back, and he continued keeping her as a prisoner with all sorts of alarm-charms placed around the corridors, then she might not be able to leave him when the 'Day of Independence' arrived… 

"Well, you know," he drawled, casually examining his fingernails, as though they were highly interesting, "yesterday I thought of something." 

"Can't wait to find out what it is," she murmured through gritted teeth. 

"So." He dropped himself into the armchair facing hers. "I had this idea… and truth be told I got rather mad at myself for not having thought of it earlier… You just had a baby." 

"That's big news," she grunted. 

"…you just had a baby, which means you are _fertile_." 

Ginny's eyes widened. Was he driving at what she thought he was driving at? 

"Yeeees. You can have other children. _My_ children." 

"You wish," she whispered. 

"Yes, that's exactly what I wish." He grinned. "Soon I'm going to visit you Virginia, and together we'll create a Malfoy-heir." 

"Right." She nodded. 

Draco blinked, surprised. "Did I hear you correctly? You said 'right'?" 

"What else could I do?" She cocked her head. "I'd like to have a child to replace my lost one, and I'd go to any length to have one… even sleep with a bastard like you. But you'll have to wait another two weeks. You know, it's not advisable to have sex until one month after a woman gives birth. Things have to go back to normal… down there." 

"Oh… right. I'll meet you in two weeks then. And don't even try to escape, my love, for the alarm charms are still there." With that he stood up and walked out of the room. 

"I'm going to get out of here, if that's the last thing I do," she whispered after the door closed. "I won't let you touch me again, you filthy Slytherin…" 

* * * * * 

As Blinky, Bobby and Wrinkly saw Draco hurry out of their Mistress' room, they exchanged worried glances. 

"Are you sure it was wise not to tell Mistress that her baby's alive?" whispered Bobby, gently massaging his bandaged hands.   
"I think it was," replied Wrinkly quietly. His hands were bandaged too. Both male elves had closed the oven door over their hands after having smuggled the baby to Dobby. "Just imagine; if we told her that the rain or the thunder or whatever must have woken the little one and he started to cry outside, she'd be so happy that she might involuntarily reveal the truth to the Master, and there'd be hell to pay… That's why Wrinkly thought we should take the baby to Dobby and not the Weasleys. The Weasleys would immediately try to contact Mistress and what if Master catches their owl? We can't risk that, we have to keep it a secret for the time being. We'll tell Mistress in time…" 

"But when?" 

"After we've helped her leave this bloody place," said Wrinkly seriously. 

"Leave the place?" Blinky's eyes widened. 

"Don't you realise she can't stay here forever? She'll wither away and die, she deserves to be free… at least _she_ should be free from evil Master if we can't be…" sighed Bobby. "Bobby will try and get her wand back, she'll need it." 

"Oh my…" Blinky whispered excitedly, "we're planning a rebellion against Master, do you realise that?" 

"If Dobby did so all those years ago, we can too," Bobby replied. "And Bobby doesn't care if he gets a whipping after helping her escape, because then the happiness at having caused Master a lot of trouble will be greater than the punishment." 

* * * * * 

_20th June_   


Ginny woke up that day with rather ambivalent feelings. She knew she should be happy that the day of freedom had finally come, yet she was still a prisoner in the Malfoy Manor and what could she do with being free from The Fates Charm but not being free to leave her quarters? 

She was free, and yet she wasn't free. 

Her heart clenched at the thought of Draco's message he'd sent her with Blinky yesterday. The message had said that the one month after her giving birth was over and Ginny should prepare herself for a very special night spent together with her husband. She felt sick when she imagined what her husband had meant by 'special'. She had always hated him touching her, for he'd been sometimes rude, sometimes just egoistic, and never caring to please her. She'd always wondered what his whores could see in him – could it be possible that the only woman whom he didn't seek to pleasure was his own wife? Why??? 

Oh, of course she knew the answer to her own question, or at least suspected it: Draco's bedfellows must all have been willing, but Ginny never was. Her playing the frigid ice queen must have hurt Draco's Malfoy-pride and incited him to make her pay for her coldness. 

She had no doubt that Draco was planning the greatest punishment ever, and this time not only for her being an unwilling lover, but also for her having been a willing lover to Potter. 

She shuddered and willed herself to think of something else, anything else… 

Should I try to escape? – she pondered. Surely Draco would notice at once, and her punishment would be greater than she could possibly imagine…__

_But I have to try, _she told herself._ I can't sit here peacefully, waiting for him to come and rape me… I'm not going to give birth to his spawn, I'd rather die…_

The door of her room opened and a slightly trembling Blinky stepped inside and closed the door. 

"What happened, Blinky?" Ginny hurried to her. "Has someone hurt you? Has Draco hurt you?" 

"No, Mistress." The elf shook her head. "Blinky is just too excited… and a bit nervous too… for Blinky and her two friends Bobby and Wrinkly have decided to help Mistress leave Malfoy Manor." 

Ginny's eyes widened. "You decided… what?" 

"You heard well, Mistress, but shhhh!" Blinky pressed her index finger to her lips. "We must not be overheard! Bobby, Wrinkly and Blinky have been plotting against Master for a while, and today the plan is finally complete." 

Ginny was listening breathless. 

"So… We've been trying to find a route for Mistress to leave the manor, but for weeks we couldn't find anything because all the exits seemed to have Master's alarm charm cast on them… yesterday evening, however, Wrinkly found it. The way to your freedom, Mistress." 

"What is it?" Ginny whispered, feeling that her heart might jump out of her chest. 

"A secret passage that opens behind a shelf in the library. It goes underground to the Muggle village. There is no alarm charm on the way from your room to the library, so you can get out without Master noticing. He has left for a couple of hours, he won't return till evening…" 

"Oh, Blinky, I could kiss you!" Ginny said with a wide smile. "When can I go?" 

"In a couple of hours, Blinky believes. Bobby still has to get Mistress' wand back from Master. He is trying it right now, as far as Blinky knows. He will of course have to punish himself afterwards, but he says it's worth the pain." 

"Oh, Blinky…" Ginny had to blink back her tears. She didn't remember when she had been so touched. "I… I don't even deserve your help; I don't want to get you into trouble…" 

"Not to worry Mistress, we do not care for the punishment; we just want to teach Master a lesson. Master is an arrogant git and he deserves it!" 

Ginny had to press her hands over her mouth not to laugh aloud. 

"I don't think I can take any of my clothes with me." She stepped to her wardrobe to look at her beautiful, expensive dresses. None of them was proper clothing for an escape. Neither did she have any money, so she didn't have the slightest idea what she'd do after she fled. She surely couldn't go back to the Burrow, that'd be the first place where Draco would look for her. Of course after the effect of The Fates Charm was lifted, she was no longer bound to Draco, but you could never be sure with a Malfoy – he might have learnt that damned Fates Charm over the years, and he might cast it on Ginny's mother or brothers this time, and Ginny knew she had no chance to go through the Row of Gods once more, not without Harry and his special talents… However, if she fled from him and took divorce proceedings from a place unknown to Draco, then it was very unlikely that Draco would try to curse Ginny's parents, for he couldn't even tell Ginny that he had cursed them… unless he sent her an owl announcing that he'd cursed them, but… Ginny decided that she was overcomplicating things. All she knew she needed was to get as far from her husband as possible. 

As her eyes skimmed her wardrobe, she noticed a small package that she hadn't touched for a month. 

Now she took it out of the wardrobe and opened it. It contained four small, baby-sized shirts, sewn by Ginny in her leisure hours. Two of them were blue, two pink.__

_How could I have forgotten about these?_ she chastised herself, took a pink one, and turned to Blinky. 

"Here." She handed the elf the piece of clothing. "Tell your friends I have two blue ones for them, too." 

Blinky's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Mistress!" 

"Shhh!" It was Ginny's turn to hush the elf. "Tell them they won't have to punish themselves if they help me. Free elves never have to punish themselves, do they?" 

Blinky stuffed the pink baby shirt into her pillowcase and ran out, tears of happiness flowing down her cheeks. 

* * * * * 

"You fools," Voldemort growled at Macnair and Jetson (the latter being a recently recruited Death Eater). "You let that Greek slip out of your hands?!?" 

"Er… well, he knew the way around wizarding Athens better than us, My Lord, and…" 

"I expected that, Rodolphus, and that you two could catch one single man," Voldemort huffed, "but it seems I expected too much of you. If I want to achieve something, I have to take things into my own hands, don't I? I'm surrounded by idiots. Honestly, just like that case in the Department of Mysteries… I had to go there because twelve Death Eaters couldn't handle six kids! And those kids were only outnumbered two to one! That Papafotiu chap was outnumbered three to one, and yet you let him escape!" 

"Well… he wasn't really trying to escape from us…" Jetson shuffled his feet. "Because, truth be told… he didn't even know we were after him… he still doesn't know…" 

"What?" the Dark Lord gasped. "You didn't even try to catch him?" 

"Of course we tried," Macnair said hastily, "but some stupid wizards on buzzing, two-wheeled Muggle thingies crossed the street and by the time they had made the way free for us again, Papafotiu had disappeared!" 

Voldemort rolled his eyes. "Those are called mopeds or motorcycles… I can't believe that three of my Death Eaters let someone disappear just because of mopeds crossing the road!" 

"Well, there were loads of mopeds." Macnair shrugged. "Some sort of a moped-race took place…" 

The Dark Lord exchanged a sour glance with Bellatrix. "It seems that if I want to get the Greek chap, I have to do it myself." 

"Off to Greece then, my Lord?" asked the woman. 

"Off to Greece, then." Nodded Voldemort. 

* * * * * 

Draco returned to Malfoy Manor around eight o'clock in the evening. He didn't go straight for Ginny's room; he instead headed for his own to have a bath and get changed. Although he had stopped applying hair gel to his hair after leaving school, tonight he decided to use some. He looked into the bathroom mirror, examining his reflection. Dashing, he thought. _Every woman would be happy to be mine… Virginia's of course an exception… but the more difficult it is to besiege a fortress, the more delightful it is when its defences finally tumble down. She'll want me tonight, and I'll be gentle with her, no matter how much she's played the inaccessible princess. I want to restart everything with her, and perhaps tonight's the night when I get the chance to do so. A new life with my Ginny…_

After sprinkling some fragrant aftershave on his face, he adjusted his clothing and walked out of the bedroom. Just in case, he conjured a bottle of champagne and set off for his wife's room. 

He knocked on her door, although it was highly unusual for him to knock on it – he was used to bursting in without being invited. Tonight, however, he wanted to do everything just right. He wanted to win her heart, and he realised that his former tactic of rushing her hadn't paid off. 

No one answered his knock. 

"Ginny?" he said. "May I come in?" 

Still no answer came. 

"Ginny?" he opened the door and peered in, to see that everything inside was dark. He swished his wand to ignite the candles and looked around. His wife was nowhere to be seen. "Are you playing hide-and-seek?" 

Nothing stirred in the room. 

"Where are you? Stop playing!" 

Draco started to feel more and more worried. Surely she couldn't have left, not with all the alarm charms – the alarm charms he had placed in the vicinity of all possible exits would not only have warned him if she tried to escape, but they would also have disabled her… 

Something glinted in the candlelight, and Draco walked up to see a small, round object on Ginny's bedside table… 

It was her wedding ring. 

His heart that had been clenched with worry for minutes, now sank into his stomach. He snatched up the ring and noticed that it had been lying on top of some sort of a parchment. 

He unfolded it to see a short letter in Ginny's handwriting.   
__

_Draco,___

_By the time you read this, I will have left the manor and you forever. Don't even try to find me. You will soon get the divorce papers. Please don't refuse to sign them, in your own interest. Should you refuse to sign them, I will be forced to bring our little blackmail case to the Magical Law Enforcement. Be a sensible little Slytherin and give up on me.___

_Ginny_

_P.S. I set the elves free. They helped me escape, but now you can't punish them for it. Revenge is sweet._   


Draco crumpled up the parchment in fury. Had he not put the bottle of champagne down before unfolding the letter, he surely would have thrown it through the closed window. 

"How could she have left?" he muttered under his breath. "Surely the alarms would have gone off… but the elves helped her, the filthy little…" 

With a sudden thought, he stormed out of the room and into the library. He knew his father had once made a detailed map of the manor's ground-plan and there had to be an exit Draco didn't know about… 

He remembered that Lucius had once showed him where the map could be found, so he headed straight for a shelf hidden in a far corner. 

"That's it!" He snatched a parchment off the shelf and rolled it out on a nearby table. "Corridor leading to the front door," he murmured, running his finger on the map, "corridor leading to backdoor A, the other leading to backdoor B… Aha!" He noticed a corridor he had never known to be there. "It goes under the surface… and it opens right… here. How convenient." 

He marched to a bookshelf marked on the map and started looking for a sign that he should push or a handle he should turn… And there it was: a small, snake-shaped latch. He moved it, and the whole shelf slid aside to reveal a dark corridor.__

_"Lumos_," he said and entered. He didn't know what to expect from going in there, it was highly unlikely that he'd find Ginny still lingering in the corridor, yet he had to try… He visualised the end of the corridor as his destination and Disapparated.   
  


"There, Mistress, we've reached the end of the passage," said Bobby, holding a torch high into the air to illuminate a door-like thing beyond which freedom awaited Ginny. 

"Thank you," Ginny said, feeling deeply touched. "But you don't have to call me Mistress anymore, you're free." 

"We know, Mistress." beamed Wrinkly. "And we are very grateful to you. Wrinkly always wanted to have a blue shirt; it makes him really handsome." 

"It definitely does." Grinned Blinky, who was sporting her new pink shirt. "Take care, Mistress, we'll miss you." 

"I'll miss you, too." Ginny smiled and dropped to her knees to pull the elves into a hug. "What will you do now that you're free?" 

"We think we are going to go and get jobs at Hogwarts," said Bobby. "Dobby will surely recommend us to the headmistress." 

"Speaking of Dobby…" Blinky cut in, "we've got to tell you something, Mistress. And please don't be mad at us for not telling you earlier, but…" 

Suddenly there was a Crack and Draco Apparated right next to them. 

"Going somewhere, Virginia?" he said, pointing his wand at her. 

"D… Draco," Ginny breathed. 

"So you've set my elves free, have you?" growled her husband. "And you thought you could leave, just like that…" 

"Please, Master, don't punish her, it's not her f…" Blinky squeaked. 

"I wasn't asking you, stupid little…"__

_"Tempus Glacietur!"_

Ginny had used the momentary lapse of Draco's attention when he'd addressed the elf, to cast the first spell she could think of. The spell she'd learnt from Harry. 

Draco and all three house elves were frozen in time, Draco's mouth open, forming some rude word to describe the elves, Blinky furious and both Bobby and Wrinkly looking surprised. For a second it crossed Ginny's mind that it was strange that the elves didn't look frightened at all, then she realised that the elves were free and they had their own branch of magic with which they could defend themselves from Draco's fury.__

_I don't have to worry about them_, she thought. _They'll surely be able to deal with Draco when the spell wears off…_   
With a last fond glance at the elves, she pushed open the hidden door of the corridor and stepped out into the cool, fresh summer night – into freedom. 

* * * * * 

"It's wonderful that they're all gone," said Amrita, sitting at the kitchen table at the Death Eater Headquarters, stirring her hot cocoa. "Why did they all go, Wormie?" 

"Never you mind," said Peter Pettigrew. 

"But Wormie… I want to knoooow!" 

Seeing her pleading expression, he sighed. 

"Oh, all right. There's nothing wrong with me telling you that… I suppose the Dark Lord wanted to catch someone and wanted to make sure that the person was really caught… at least that's what he said. It seems he has lost confidence in his Death Eaters' abilities." 

"And why does he want to catch someone?" 

"Because…" 

"Because he's an evil man?" said Amrita. 

"Er… sort of." 

"People really dislike him, don't they?" 

"Well, most of them do." 

"And you? Don't you dislike him, too?" 

"Enough of the questions," replied Peter, standing up on a stool to peer into an upper cupboard. "Damn, it's empty." 

"What?" 

"We've run out of…" 

"…of?" she asked with a curious expression. 

"Never you mind." Waved Peter. 

She shrugged and continued slurping her cocoa as loudly as she could. 

"I've got to go to Knockturn Alley and get something," he muttered, taking off his apron. 

"What do you have to get?" Seeing the expression on Wormtail's face, she made a grimace. "I know: _never you mind_." 

"Exactly." Nodded the man. "The only problem is that I can't leave you here alone…" 

"Why not?" enquired the child. "I wouldn't really mind." 

Peter gave her an appraising look. "I don't even want to imagine what you'd do here alone, young lady." 

"Nothing bad, I promise," replied Amrita eagerly. "I'd try on Lady Lestrange's spiffy earrings, the ones she got from Rodolphus, and perhaps that beautiful pink tutu too, that Goyle wore for the Halloween party…" 

Peter's mouth twitched. Neither could he decide whether to laugh or scold her, nor could he decide whether she was just saying these things out of childish innocence or if she was deliberately joking. Could a barely seven-year-old child joke about things like that? Well, after all, Amrita had always been an exceptionally intelligent little girl, having inherited genes from the Dark Lord himself… and Harry Potter couldn't be called an idiot, either, and Amrita had genes from him, too. Yet Wormtail didn't envy the poor lamb for her ancestry. Not in the least… 

"So, can I wear Lady Lestrange's earrings, pleeeease?" She gave him her thoroughly exercised puppy-stare that had always melted his heart. Not this time, though. 

"No," he shook his head. 

She was about to start pouting when he added: "You're coming with me." 

"To nocturnally?" 

"Yeah, to Knockturn Alley," came the answer. "But we won't spend much time there, I'll just buy what I need in ten minutes, then we'll be coming back here. Who knows when the Dark Lord will arrive back? He'd be really mad if he didn't find us here. Especially if he has exhausted himself and needs a new ritual…" 

Amrita put down her cocoa, having lost her appetite. She hated those damn rituals! 

* * * * * 

"Damn you, V'rginiaaaa," Draco hiccoughed, dropping himself on his bed, a bottle of Odgen's Old Firewhisky in his right hand. He had only arrived back into the manor a quarter of an hour earlier, but he was already totally drunk. Drunk and seething with rage. Ginny had not only escaped, but freed his remaining three house elves and cast some charm on him, from which he'd only woken up around dawn. 

"Damn ya a thousan' times," he growled. 

Suddenly he pushed himself into a sitting position. Something had occurred to him. He stood up, and slightly swaying, he stumbled to the picture of Narcissa Malfoy and wrenched it off the wall. Now he was facing a little, hidden door. "Tujur puuuuuure," he said, his tongue not being able to work as he would have liked it. "I'm sayin' Toujour p… damn." He shook his head, trying to clear it, but to no avail. He tried for the third time: "_T… toujours pur!_" 

The little door swung open to reveal several items that the Malfoys would never have showed to outsiders. In fact, Draco had never showed this to his wife, either. 

Hiccoughing, he reached into the safe and took out a longish glass case that contained one single red hair. "You are… you're goin' ta pay, Virginia!" he muttered and opened the glass case, taking out the hair. "Sc'ssors, I need some sciss… bugger, I 'ave a waaaand!" 

He pulled his wand out of the pocket of his robes and pointed it at the hair: "_Se… Secetur!_" 

A devilish smirk spread on his face. "Now ya got it… S'ry Mr Weeeasley… res' in peace." 

* * * * * 

"Of course we're helping you, sis, how much d'you need?" asked Fred, gazing at Ginny's nervous face. After fleeing from the tunnel, her way led first to Diagon Alley and to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. She hoped that Draco would look for her in the Burrow or Ron and Hermione's flat rather than here. 

"Actually, I need quite a lot," she sighed. "I want to leave the country." 

"And where would you go?" interjected George. 

"Dunno… perhaps… perhaps to Greece." 

The twins exchanged a knowing look. 

"Wouldn't it be too painful for you to go there?" 

"No." She shook her head. "True, Harry died there, but… besides Hogwarts and the Burrow that was the only place where I was truly happy. And since I can't go to Hogwarts and can't go home, at least not yet, I want to go to Greece." 

"But what are you going to do there?" 

"I don't know yet… I'll surely find a job… Perhaps Nikias will employ me as a waitress." 

"Well, until you find a job, you can count on our financial help." George smiled. "We love you little sis and we want you to be happy… and to top it all, I owe you my life." He winked at her. "Had you not notified the Healers that I was moaning like hell, I would have died there." 

"I didn't even know it was you." She shrugged. 

"Well, you need money." Fred turned the course of discussion back to the original one. "Muggle money, I presume?" 

"Yeah." Ginny nodded. "I can't travel by magic, the Greeks don't like Portkeys and they don't use Floo either. And I can't Apparate. Nothing's left but Muggle transport, and surely Draco wouldn't go to the airport to look for me, would he?" 

"Nah, it's beneath his dignity to enter a Muggle place." Waved George. "But how are you going to get the papers you need?   
You don't have any Muggle papers." 

"I'm a witch, remember?" She grinned at him. "I can conjure papers." 

"Oh, yeah." Fred grinned back at her. "Too bad you don't want to stay for one more day; the family's going to visit the Lupins tomorrow. You know, they had their son last week." 

"Did they?" Ginny's face fell. She knew she should feel happy about Remus and Tonks' happiness, but her own grief was still too fresh. She'd lost her son, and it hurt her to hear about other people's babies. 

"Oh… it was stupid of me to mention it." Fred made a grimace. "Sorry sis, I forgot." 

"Never mind, Fred. It was better this way," she replied. "According to the elves my little son was a spitting image of Harry… Draco wouldn't have let him live. He would have died either way." 

"Oh, sis." Fred gathered her into an embrace and she wept into his dragon skin jacket for minutes. 

"It's okay," she finally pulled back, sniffing. "I'm happy for Remus' baby. I'm sorry I can't see him, especially because I had promised Tonks I'd be the kid's godmother… tell them that I'm really sorry that I have to break my promise." 

"They'll understand," George said, and then a little smile appeared on his face. "You should have seen Remus a couple of days ago; he was practically dizzy with happiness, kept hugging and kissing everyone! Actually, he was a bit tipsy… Between two hiccoughs he said he only wished that his old friend Buckbeak were here to share his happiness." 

"Buckbeak?" Ginny's eyes widened. "Oh my gosh! We forgot… we left him in Pireus! And Harry promised Remus to return Beaky to him safe and sound… oh, I've got to go to Pireus and get the poor thing out of the Flying Creature Repository!" 

"The flying creature what?" the twins asked. 

* * * * * 

Amrita was walking down Diagon Alley holding Wormtail's hand, her eyes drinking in the beauty of the place. She had never been outside the Death Eater Headquarters before, and suddenly she was at a place where everything was so new and exciting that she thought her heart would burst. 

She was grinning uncontrollably as she kept looking from her right to her left, not to miss anything from the thousand wonders of the wizard street. Here was a shop window full of owls, there was a robe shop with beautiful, modern robes direct from Paris, on the opposite side of the street was a shop whose window was full of stylish brooms and children of Amrita's age were pressing their noses to the glass, letting out 'oooh's and 'ahhh's. 

Amrita wanted to join them and check out the brooms, but Peter held her hand tightly and steered her deliberately through the maze of cobble-stoned streets. She wondered why his hood was drawn up to cover his face, but she didn't ask. There were too many things to see and store in her mind to waste her precious time on asking questions she could ask when they arrived back at the headquarters. 

Suddenly Wormtail stopped in front of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. "I'm going to go alone from here," he told the child. 

"Why can't I go?" She frowned. 

"Because I'm going to a place not suitable for little children. Be a good girl and wait for me here. Sit down at a table, and when the waiter comes and asks what you'd like to have, ask for an ice cream. I'll pay for it when I get back. By the time you finish it, I'll be back. I promise I won't be long." 

"Ooookay." She pouted and watched Pettigrew walk into a nearby street. 

Well, what could she do? She dropped herself on a chair on the parlour's terrace, wondering what the heck ice cream could be. 

* * * * *   
Draco woke up with a terrible headache. "Arrgghh," he groaned, massaging his forehead that hurt like hell. Actually, his whole head hurt like hell.__

_That's what you get when you drink a whole bottle of Firewhisky_, he thought sourly. 

"Blinky!" he called, expecting the elf to hurry to his service and make him a nice, strong, headache-killing tea. However, the elf didn't turn up. 

"Oh yeah," he murmured, hiding his face in his hands. "They left. Ginny set them free… It looks I'll have to make coffee myself…" 

He stood up and started looking for his wand that he must have dropped during the night. He found it lying next to Narcissa Malfoy's picture on the floor. Draco knitted his eyebrows. Why and when had he pulled this off the wall? 

He looked up to see the door of the safe open. "Did I open this?" He scratched his head, trying to remember. As he strained his mind, a memory crossed it like a flash of lightning: a red hair… a wand pointed at it… him holding the wand, and muttering a severing charm… 

He felt as though he had been slapped across the face by the tail of a Blast-Ended Skrewt. 

"I've killed him," he whispered. "I've killed Arthur Weasley! Heavens…" 

* * * * * 

"Honestly Ron, going into Knockturn Alley," Hermione said in a scolding voice, "I understand you promised Fred and George to get doxy venom for them, but you could have bought it in the apothecary's shop in Diagon Alley as well." 

"Yeah, but you can get it in Knockturn Alley much cheaper," Ron replied. "And Fred and George have good business relations with an apothecary in there, who gives them forty percent discount." 

"Oh yeah, I can imagine them being on friendly terms with such dubious characters," she snapped. 

"If you're so much against me getting supplies for my brothers, then you are free to leave. I'll do it alone," he grunted. 

"It's not like that," she said, somewhat frightened from the prospect of leaving him alone in a dodgy place like this. She had agreed to come in the first place, she shouldn't back out now. 

"Then what is it like?" he demanded. 

"It's just like…" 

Ron never got to know what it was like, because in the next instant a hooded figure ran headlong into them. 

"Watch out where…" Ron began, but stopped in mid-sentence, for the blast of the collision had swept the hood off the wizard's face. 

"Wormtail!" breathed Hermione. 

The Death Eater's eyes widened with shock and fear while Ron's face showed anger and Hermione's hand dived into her robes for her wand. 

Peter, however, had been clutching his wand under his robes all along, even when walking hand in hand with Amrita. If he had learnt one thing in Voldemort's service, it was never to go into Diagon Alley or any wizarding community without clutching your wand under your cloak. 

A millisecond earlier than Hermione, he whipped out his wand at the two young people. "_Stupefy_!" he shouted, but since he couldn't stun two people at once, he aimed somewhere between Ron and Hermione, not managing to stun either of them, but making them feel the charm brush them. However, these few seconds of diversion were enough for Wormtail to turn and run, pointing his wand over his shoulder and sending jinxes at his pursuers. 

Totally forgetting about his intention of buying doxy venom for the twins' next invention, Ron hurled himself after the Death Eater who had once betrayed his best friend's parents and who had aided the Dark Lord in returning to a new body… Pointing his wand at the fleeing Pettigrew, he kept sending hexes, and next to him Hermione was doing the same, breathing hard as she ran flat out, her face set, her brows furrowed angrily. 

They couldn't let this scumbag escape again! 

* * * * * 

Amrita was licking a delicious strawberry ice cream (deciding that she had never eaten anything as wonderful as this), and watching the witches and wizards walk around. She realised that it was highly interesting just to watch the passers-by. Never in her seven years of life had she been outside the headquarters, and the only people she had ever met were her grandfather and his Death Eaters, who were always dressed in dark robes. The world seemed to be filled with colours she'd never seen, odours she'd never smelled, and happy chatter she'd never heard. It surprised her that the world could be this interesting, this colourful and noisy… 

She glanced at the neighbouring table where a woman was sitting with her hood drawn over her face. However, from what Amrita saw of the woman's face she could tell the woman was really pretty and friendly, for she sent the child a smile whenever she looked at her. The woman had arrived shortly after Peter had left…. 

Half an hour after Peter had walked into Knockturn Alley, Amrita was still sitting on the parlour's terrace (having eaten her way through fudge and chocolate ice creams too) and had begun to worry. What had happened to Wormie? He said he'd be back soon! In the headquarters he'd said he'd buy whatever he needed in ten minutes and he'd return after that. But… the ten minutes were long over… What if he had got into trouble? 

Amrita began rocking on her chair, deep in thought. _Should I go looking for him?_ she thought. _But no, he said I should wait for him here. He said we had to go back to the headquarters, because Grandpa might return any time, and he might need me for another ritual…_

She shuddered.__

_I'm not going back!_ – she said to herself and got frightened by her own boldness. _Am I allowed to not go back?_

She looked around again, to see whether Wormtail was coming or not. There was still no trace of him.__

_What if Wormie brought me here and left me here because he wanted me to leave? He has always felt sorry for me… Perhaps he didn't mean it when he said I should wait for him here… Yes, I think he wanted me to escape, because he wanted me to be free from Grandpa at last! I bet he wanted to help me, now we know that Daddy's alive, I can go looking for him!_

With a bright smile she hopped off her chair and wanted to leave, but Florean Fortescue called after her: 

"And who's going to pay, young lady?" 

Amrita turned around. She had totally forgotten that Wormie had told her he'd settle the bill when he returned. 

"I… I don't have any money." She shook her head. "But I'm sure that my friend will come soon and pay you, but I really have to go now…" 

"I'm sorry, little one, but you'll just have to wait for your friend here," replied the owner of the Ice Cream Parlour. 

The woman who had been sitting at the neighbouring table now rose to her feet and walked over to Mr Fortescue. "I'll pay her ice cream. I'd like to settle my own bill as well. How much is it?" 

"Ten sickles, madam." 

"Here." The woman handed the owner ten silver coins, then turned to Amrita. "You're free to leave, my dear." 

"Thank you." Beamed Amrita as Mr Fortescue returned to his shop. "You saved my life." 

The woman laughed, her voice was very pleasant, just as pretty as her face. "I hardly think I saved your life." 

"But you did." 

"How did I save your life?" asked the woman, bending slightly down. A thick mass of dark brown hair cascaded out of her hood. 

"You saved me from that man who wanted to put me into an orphanage!" 

"An orphanage?" The woman's chocolate brown eyes widened. "Are you an orphan?" 

"Yeah, madam." Amrita nodded. "My mum died long ago, and my dad died recently, and that man wanted to take me into the orphanage, but do you know what sort of an orphanage is that?" 

The woman shook her head. 

"It's awful, with a lot of awful people and a very evil director!" the child said passionately, finding this fibbing-business quite entertaining. But after all, she wasn't fibbing that much, her 'home' was really a terrible place full of terrible Death Eaters and Voldemort was definitely the worst 'director' imaginable. Also, she had heard from Wormtail that her grandfather had grown up in an orphanage, and – according to Wormtail – this had been the reason for Grandpa Voldemort to become such an evil man. "I don't want to go there, madam." 

The woman regarded the child with a completive look. "What's your name?" 

"Am… Amy," lied Amrita. Wormie had told her that people didn't like her grandpa, and she assumed that if this nice lady knew whose granddaughter she was, she wouldn't like her, either. So she just had to lie… 

"My name's Ginny, and I'm heading off to a very nice, sunny place. I think I could use some company on my way…" 

Amrita's eyes widened. It seemed that today was a day full of surprises and wonders – first Wormie bringing her along to a wonderful place, then she ate ice cream and now this lady offering to take her to some nice place… and she wouldn't have to go back to Grandpa! 

Ginny didn't know why she had found it so natural to offer the child to take her along with her… she really couldn't have explained it. She just felt something warm and happy when she looked at this child – the little one had been so sweet sitting there, licking her ice cream and looking at the world as though she had never seen it before, her green eyes wide with amazement… It didn't even sink in _why_ she found the little girl so sympathetic, but the thought crossed her mind that if she could have had a daughter, she would have liked to have one like Amy. 

"Of course I understand if you'd rather stay here," Ginny said, but Amrita cut in: 

"I'm coming, madam." 

"Just call me Ginny, I'm not that old." 

"Okay, Ginny. Do you know you're really beautiful?" Ginny laughed lightly. "Why'd you hide your face when you're so pretty?" 

"Perhaps because I don't want anyone to see me." Ginny winked at the child and pulled her hood even lower.   


* * * * *

Draco thought he was going mad. He'd lost Ginny, he'd lost his elves, and he'd become a murderer. Certainly he had never really wanted to cut that hair, but too much alcohol turns even the finest gentleman into a beast and makes him lose control over his thoughts and deeds… 

When he'd severed Arthur Weasley's hair, he hadn't been in his right mind. This whole Fates Charm affair had been good to keep Ginny around, to keep her in check, but Draco had never really meant it! He was a bastard, yes, but not a murderer!   
Or was he? 

He looked at the phone box that served as the visitor's entrance to the Ministry of Magic. 

His father had been here on several occasions when he'd been on such good terms with Fudge, and he had told Draco the series of numbers to dial. 

He entered the telephone box. 

"Six… two… four… four… two," Draco muttered and waited for the dial to whirr back into place. 

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business." 

"Er… Draco Malfoy, going to denounce myself to the Magical Law Enforcement." 

"Thank you. Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes." 

A badge slid out of the telephone apparatus, bearing the legend _Draco Malfoy, Criminal_. 

"Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium." 

The telephone box started to sink, and as daylight disappeared and darkness closed around him, Draco suddenly felt frightened to death. He had been frightened enough when he'd realised that he'd killed someone, but now that he was about to admit it to the Aurors, he really had cold feet. 

Had he made the right decision to come here and confess? 

The Malfoy and the Slytherin bastard in him were rebelling against that little fragment of righteousness that had (who knows how?) been born in his heart overnight.__

_I shouldn't have come here_, he thought and felt like banging his head into the telephone box's glass pane, but he realised it was missing - some vandal must have broken it. In the next instant golden light illuminated his feet, and soon he was facing the Atrium. 

"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day." 

"Yeah, pleasant," Draco grunted and walked past the long-since repaired fountain of Magical Brethren, heading for the lift. However, a voice stopped him from the left. 

"Your wand, please!" 

He whirled around to see a badly-shaven wizard in peacock blue robes, holding _The Quibbler _upside down, leering at him. 

"Oh, yeah." Draco nodded absentmindedly and handed over his wand. The Security wizard gave him – or rather his badge – a questioning look, but said nothing. He had just taken his wand back when the lift to Draco's right opened and a highly familiar figure strode out. 

Young Malfoy's wand fell onto the floor with a clatter. 

"Arthur Weasley!" he breathed. 

"Yeah, that's my name… son-in-law," Arthur said with a sour expression. 

Draco couldn't believe his eyes. He had killed this man during the night, and yet he was here, very much alive!!! 

As he bent down for his wand, his hand went to his visitor's badge and – as inconspicuously as possible – he slipped it into his pocket. 

"It's not likely I'll remain your son-in-law for long." He grimaced as he stood up. 

"What do you mean?" Arthur raised an eyebrow. 

"Ginny left. She… escaped." 

"Well, it was high time," Mr Weasley said. "You treated her like a slave, you locked her up and you didn't let us visit her… not even when she gave birth… The way you treated my daughter… no wonder her baby became ill and died. You are the murderer, only you, Malfoy." 

Seeing Mr Weasley's furious face, Draco gulped. "You're right. It's my fault. And not only this. As we've started this, I want to tell you the whole story. From the beginning." 

"Into my office, then," Arthur instructed. 

* * * * * 

"Oh, so terrible," sighed Blinky, dropping herself on a chair in Dobby's little house. "She cast some charm on all four of us and fled and we never even had a chance to tell her that her baby is alive!" 

"We'll find Ginny Wheezy and we'll tell her somehow," replied Dobby, cradling the little boy in his arms. "She has to get to know… this little angel needs his mummy… don't you Baby?" he cooed and gave the baby a bottle of warm milk. 

"Awwww… isn't he cute? He looks exactly like Harry Potter!" 

"He does," agreed Wrinkly, examining the little boy's face and his radiant eyes. "Wrinkly is sure his eyes are going to remain that green. Really, Dobby, what's his name?" 

"His name?" Dobby frowned. "Dobby never thought of naming him. Dobby just calls him Baby. We have to give him back to Ginny Wheezy; she's going to name him." 

"Do you know it's bad luck if a baby isn't named for several days after its birth?" asked Bobby worriedly. 

"Nah." Dobby shook his head. "This little one can't have bad luck, can he? It's a wonder that he's alive… he's downright lucky." 

* * * * * 

"Why have you sent for me, Your Majesty?" asked Harry, bowing slightly before Hades. 

"I have news for you, young Potter," replied the King of the Underworld. "First of all: the culprits who set Cerberus on you have been caught. Salazar Slytherin and Lucius Malfoy." 

"Why am I not surprised?" Harry grimaced. "What are you planning to do with them?" 

"Well, it's rather hard to make up something suitable, since no punishment I have tried so far has worked for the Tartarus people… I thought maybe you could suggest something?" 

Harry frowned, racking his brain. Then suddenly his face lit up. "I know! I've seen the Addams Family, and there this little punishment worked wonderfully…" 

"Well?" Hades asked. 

With an impish grin Harry leant closer and told him. 

The King's eyes widened. "That's ruuude! Especially for someone from Tartarus!" 

"I know," winked Harry. "They deserve it for wanting to do me in, don't you think?" 

"Well, actually they confessed that they didn't want to kill you, just maim you so that you wouldn't be able to play Seeker. But of course they didn't know what I know: that you won't be here for the next match." 

Harry gaped at Hades. "D'you mean what I think you mean?" 

"Yeah." Hades nodded. "Cedric returned yesterday evening. You're free to leave." 

Harry's face lit up with happiness: he'd be able to see Ginny at last, and Ginny was free from The Fates Charm already, so he'd be able to marry her if he could divorce Phaedra! 

Then his smile vanished, as it struck him that leaving the 'safety' of the Underworld would also mean having to face Voldemort… for he had long ago decided that he'd put aside his fears for his daughter and wouldn't let Voldemort blackmail him any longer. 

"That's… that's great," he muttered. "I'll go then and say goodbye to my family." 

"Do so. Oh, and Harry!" 

"Yeah?" 

"You have won three matches for Elysium – you've given us hope… I'm eternally grateful for that and I'd like to say thanks with some sort of a… gift. I thought I could give you some powers… Of course not all sorts of powers, for example I can't give any power to take away things from people… just to give them things. And I can only give you a one time use power… But such powers can be rather useful, too, so think up one and you'll get it." 

"I don't think I need any powers." Harry shook his head. "But thanks." 

"Just think it over, Harry." 

"Okay, I will." The young wizard nodded and walked out of the King's palace, his heart full of ambivalent feelings. He was free at last… but freedom meant he had to leave his parents again. For ten happy months he felt his parents' love, their caring… he got to know what it was like to be held by an affectionate mother or slapped on the back by a proud father. He had to leave this behind. He had to leave his little daughter here too, only to sacrifice his other one if it came to that… But what if it really came to that, and he again was weak, his damn good heart again preventing him from doing the sensible thing? As long as he had had to stay in the Underworld, it had been quite easy for him to say '_If I have to choose between saving Amrita and saving the world, I won't hesitate which one to choose_'… Now that the time to make this decision for real was so close, it suddenly seemed terribly hard. After all, what father would willingly sacrifice his child to save the world? 

Involuntarily Harry thought of God Almighty of whom he had read in the Bible in his childhood. He had sacrificed his own Son to save the world… 

Harry looked up at the bright blue sky, feeling extremely small, a mere piece of dust on Earth. What was he compared to God? Nothing.   
  


"I heard you were leaving…" 

Harry had been gazing at the creek that crossed the land on which the Potters' house stood. He had been saying goodbye to this place. He had already said goodbye to his parents, Sirius and Daffy and he just wanted to cut this picture into his mind, to be able to remember it forever… although he wasn't sure that he wouldn't be returning here soon… Having to face Voldemort also meant he might die...__

_And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…_

He turned around to face the owner of the voice. 

"Yes, I am. Cedric returned," he answered. 

"I know. I just wanted you to know that the union between us wasn't done for nothing. Should you feel you're weak, call me and I'll be with you. My soul will be able to separate itself from the Underworld and accompany you. I'd like to help you against my father, I really would." 

"Thanks Linda, I'll remember that," replied Harry and bent down, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for being such a good friend." 

Someone cleared their throat and the two young people turned around to face Albus Dumbledore. 

"Take care, Harry," said Linda and walked away, leaving Harry alone with the onetime headmaster of Hogwarts. 

"Professor," Harry said, not really knowing what to expect. Had Dumbledore come to give him advice on how to kill Voldemort? Would he try and convince Harry to forget about his feelings for his daughter and give all his strength to ridding the world of the Dark Lord? 

What Albus said then surprised the young wizard: 

"Death is not the worst thing that can happen to someone, Harry. Remember that." 

Harry opened his mouth to reply, to ask what Dumbledore had meant, but couldn't for the old man suddenly pulled him into a tight hug, then Disapparated. 

Harry had never seen someone Apparate or Disapparate in the Underworld before. When he had arrived here he had decided he wouldn't try Apparating in case it went wrong down here, and since then he had already forgotten about trying it. 

"Wait!" he shouted, but Dumbledore was gone. 

Frustrated, Harry sank into the grass and pulled off his shoes to bathe his feet in the pleasantly cool creek for the last time. He leant back, shielding his eyes against the sun's rays and thought. 

What had the crazy old man meant by that? _Worse than death? _What could be worse than death? 

Well, of course Harry could think of a couple of things: living locked up for years, for example… he had never asked Sirius, but he surmised that spending twelve years at Azkaban must have been worse than dying… What else? He closed his eyes, thoughts and ideas chasing each other in his mind. _Linda?_

*Yes?* she replied inside of his head.__

_What do you think would be worse for your father than dying?_

*That's obvious, isn't it?* she replied. *What does he love above all?*__

_Er… power, I think…_

*Bingo.*__

_Oh! I understand! Harry slapped his forehead. Thanks a lot, Linda!_

*What for? I haven't even helped.*   


  
Harry ran through the meadow, towards Hades' palace. On his way he saw a cute little pink house in front of which Salazar Slytherin and Lucius Malfoy were standing, surrounded by five of Hades' guards. 

"What sort of treatment is this?" huffed Lucius Malfoy. 

"You are going to go in there and have a bit of fun…" laughed one of the guards. 

"Yeah, we have the house equipped with a huge movie screen. Non-stop movies for a whole week for you people…" nodded another guard with an evil smirk. "Hades said you'd love them!" 

"Oh come on, you surely don't mean this!" whined Slytherin. 

"But we do," sneered the guards and pushed the two villains towards the pink house's door. 

"But…" Lucius shouted desperately, "but… _Disney???"_   
  


"Your Majesty!" Harry stormed into the throne room, panting. He stopped in front of the throne to see Cedric standing there. "Oh, hi, Ced." 

"Hello, Harry. I've heard you beat filthy Tartarus three times. Well done!" 

"Oh, yeah," Harry was gasping for breath. "What… what's up with your parents?" 

"They're feeling loads better. They'll have to remain in St Mungo's for another month or so, but they are going to heal totally." 

"Glad to hear." Harry smiled. "Have you… have you delivered my message to Ginny?" 

"I have." Cedric nodded. "But I'm not sure she believed me. She was in a state of shock, the poor thing." 

"Then I have to hurry back to her and make her see I'm alive, eh?" said Harry, then turned to Hades. "I've… I've changed my mind, Your Majesty. I do need a power…a very special one…" 

"Fire away, young Potter."   
  


**A/N2:**

_Wood's secret lover_: not enough Ginny? I think I put more of her into the fic than into any of my fics before. Yes, my Artemis fic will be up here on ffnet. And perhaps you won't dislike it. After all, it won't be an Eoin Colfer book but an AgiVega fanfic ;) And I'm enjoying writing it tremendously. It feels so good to write something new for a change, not always HP. It's downright refreshing. 

_Requiem to a Dream_: no, Leto was only a couple of weeks pregnant when Ginny got pregnant. 

_figgiesblazin_: no, Ginny wasn't freed from the Fates Charm (read back in chapter 15, the Fates themselves said that they couldn't free Ginny right then, only by 20th June). 

_jnpsmama_: Draco took Ginny into St Mungo's, they fixed her there. Yes, Phaedra does come back :D Glad you found the dog biscuits hilarious. I thought that chapter 23 needed something funny amidst all those sad things. 

_TrixieFirecracker_: no, no more visits from Cedric. Harry didn't really know what was happening to Ginny, he just dreamed something. Sometimes you can feel if something bad happens to those you love. For example, when my grandmother died I felt it before I even knew it. 

_Silvercrystal77_: Mrs Diggory (born Papafotiu) is the aunt of Spiro and Leto. I don't really know how to pronounce Papafotiu... Yes, you should read back, because Spiro had quite a bit of role earlier (starting from the very end of chapter 7, ending in chapter 10). Spiro is on Voldie's hitlist, but not for an unknown reason. The reason is that Harry had registered in the Atlantis Hotel using Spiro's name and he snatched the parchment that Voldie wanted from the Death Eaters. Voldie thinks that the person who has the parchment about becoming immortal is Spiro, thus he wants to find him. The Diggorys didn't do anyting for the Order. 

_Huskerinexile_: I can't update quicker, because my beta needs her time to read through the chapters. Thanks for your kind words. 

_cafee_: seven chapters left. 

_ahbahh_: the baby isn't dead :)) 

_C-chan1_: I long downloaded the gnommish. Look at my deviantart gallery (link in my bio), you'll see an Artemis/Holly pic as the featured art, there's text in gnommish in the background :) I heard of Tamora Pierce but never read her books. Yay, you said the banana thingie in German :)) 

_SnowflakeGinny_: Harry learnt Occlumency but never properly managed to learn it. 

_Paige_: I only saw the movie version of About a boy, it was good. I like Hugh Grant too :) 

_child of darkness_: yup. 

_noemi_: obviously the baby isn't dead. Why is Ginny nasty to Draco even when he's trying to be nice? Because Draco had caused her too much pain and right after giving birth to a (supposedly) dead child she was in a very bad mood, quite understandably. Had I been in her place, I wouldn't have been any nicer to Draco either. 

_sikokid_: the noise was a baby cry, the baby was never dead but his breathing and blood circulation had been too slow to notice. Seven chapters left. 

_*katie_: yes, I'll name the baby. Just not yet. Wrinkly is a male elf, not a female. Yes, I've heard Mozart's Requiem. 

_Katrina Littlebird_: please read my comment to Silvercrystal77. 

_Molly_: Ginny thought that the elves had already buried the baby, but she must have said that _while_ the elves were still carrying the baby to bury him. 

_Natalia_: you'll find out from the next chapter :) 

_Imalil2sarcastic_: the house-elves didn't know that Draco hadn't really wanted to kill the child. Yes, I've read all the HP books in English (and the first in German too). You can get them in Hungarian, English and German here. And I met someone who read them in Swedish, but perhaps he bought them in Sweden not here, I don't know. We got the HP movies both in subtitled and dubbed version (I liked the subtitled more, because Harry's Hungarian voice was horrible). 

_EowynDernhelm_: no, the kid's name won't be Greek. 

_DarkFlower2113_: no, I don't mind, I'm happy that you recommend my fic to people :)) I'm not throwing rotten tomato at you, Spiro isn't my fav character either (it's Amrita), but you'll grow to like him more later, I'm sure. As for Ginny's baby: read the final lines of chapter 23. The baby isn't dead. No, chapter 23 wasn't out a bit earlier than usual. 

_annskers_: I'm from Hungary. Read my ffnet bio, it's mentioned there too (and you can find out lot more about me that way). 

_Indigo Ziona_: please read my answer to Silvercrystal77. 

_Elfy19_: no, the baby isn't dead. Re-read the last few sentences of chapter 23, they are quite revealing if you pay attention. I'd be happy if my readers 'switched fandoms' just to read my Artemis fic, LOL. But I don't think that many of them will. A few, perhaps. I heard that Colfer had said that there WILL be a fourth book, so it isn't just rumour *do you hear me, Eoin, write a fourth book! Right now!* Btw, did you get my mail with questions about Artemis? 

_marueen_: you'll find out the baby's name in chapter 30. No sooner. As for the poison - Harry wasn't dead, he still could have died. Happy belated birthday! 

_Ally of Pirate's Swoop_: I'm glad you like Artemis too :)) See, Cedric came back at last! 

_blaubaerin_: wonderful tarts as Lily - LOL. That's really funny :))))) I never read The Hobbit, the three LotR books were enough! No, I haven't seen Ronia. Harry isn't immortal, he's invulnerable, there's a big difference. He can be poisoned and he can die of age. I don't think Artemis is a HP copy. It's very, very, very different from it. 

_Squalldaman_: you have no idea how happy I was to see your name on the review board! It's always nice to get old readers back :) Oh, you poor one, you got yelled at by the teacher because of my fic... I was unfulfilled after OotP too. I liked all other HP books more, OotP just wasn't that good. How do I find the time to be this good? LOL. I wrote most of this fic over the summer when I had loads of free time :)) I always write my fics out before I start posting, that's how I can update once-twice a week. 

_Abluebird225_: yep, this fic is long finished, I'm just tweaking each chapter before posting it. Jason is Phaedra's brother and Leto is Spiro's sister. Daphne is in the Underworld, obviously. 

_Hermione2b_: had the child really died, then Harry might have met him in the Underworld. But this way - no. 

_Hues of Blue_: yeah, actually I'm quite surprised that I'm getting so many reviews on SIYE now. At the beginning I barely got 2-3/chapter there, but now I get 15-20 per chapter :)) Did you get my mails about Artemis? 

_TigHan_: Dudley was really Dudley :) 

_hypnotic-babe_: Wormtail is already paying his debt back, by taking care of Amrita. Seven chapters left. 

Also thanks to: _Elizabeth Darcy, Wizzabee, TheSilverLady, Houou Kazoku-Kaga, kneh13, Brown*Pryde, Inken, Sarahamanda, Gaia, torifire126, xxGinnyxx, OfTheWest, Woodpecker, dementorchic, moony*padfoot, kitkat, SiriuslyDelirious, Chelsea of the Moor, gaul1, Kit Cloudkicker, Snuffles208, rebkos, Myr Halcyon, Written in Stars, goldenstar555, bambooanime, Mistri Tonks' Admirer, Angelicheezpie, Mery, luisa, Tap Dancing Widow, Swanny, enna seawave, Romina, hi-voltage57, Any last requests?, Alexander Phoenix, ifitaintbroke88, iNiGmA, yellowpages, apple-pie_


	25. Dum Spiro Spero

**A/N**: very likely I will not be able to update next week, given that I will have a very difficult exam on the 17th in order to be accepted into a university (I'd like to have a second diploma), so I will be studying like mad. Please be patient with me. I will update on the 19th or 20th April. Oh, and please say May the Force be with you! :))   
Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates it!   
The title of this chapter means 'I hope as long as I live' in Latin.   


**Chapter 25******

**Dum spiro spero**

_"A dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly."_   
(Pirates of the Caribbean)   


_This is just a nightmare_, Spiro told himself, forcing his eyes shut. He was lying on the ground at a godforsaken place outside Athens. Several withering hornbeam trees were hanging their branches sadly, as though mourning the young man's death in advance. 

It was dawn, the first rays of the sun painting the horizon yellow, orange and pink, but Spiro didn't see any of this beauty because he kept his eyes shut, fearing that if he looked up, he'd recognise that this wasn't a nightmare at all… 

"Speak," commanded a high-pitched voice.__

_No nightmare then_, Spiro thought sourly and opened his eyes just a bit to squint up at the thin but tall man towering above him in the circle of several other men, all clad in black cloaks and having their hoods pulled over their faces. Like an icy hand, fear clenched at the young wizard's heart as the tall man looked down at him, his eyes glowing red from the dark recesses of his hood. This man had shot some sort of spell at him; flattening him to the ground and making him wish it was just a dream from which he'd wake up soon. 

No such luck… 

"I… I have no idea… what you want from me…" Spiro muttered. Those ominous red eyes flared up inside the hood. 

"You're lying," said the high-pitched voice. 

"H…how could I, w…when I don't even know what's this… this is all about!" Spiro stammered. 

"Oh, he doesn't know," said the owner of the high-pitched voice. Some of his companions forming the circle laughed. "So you don't know anything about the parchment you stole from my servants?" 

"What… what parchment?" breathed the Greek wizard. _Would this madness never end? Please?_

"What parchment??? He really thinks I'm an idiot," said the tall man. "Crucio!" 

Spiro felt pain beyond pain, torment beyond imagination… _End it… end it, please, and I'll confess you about every parchment, even those I never stole!_

"That hurt, didn't it?" 

Spiro gritted his teeth, steeling himself not to answer this horrible man, whoever it was. However, deep down he already knew who it must be… he just didn't dare believe that the infamous Dark Lord would sink so low as to want something from him. Who was he, after all? Nobody. A member of the Circle of Hermes, that's true, but even Spiro was aware that he was quite a pathetic member. Up until now he hadn't managed to catch a single wrongdoer, but had involuntarily helped someone escape – someone Jason had been after. The memory of Jason's straight right still vividly lived in his memory. However, not even that straight right came close to the pain caused by the Cruciatus curse. During his training to be a proper Circle member Spiro had been warned about the Unforgivable Curses, but never in his wildest dreams had he expected the Cruciatus to be this horrible. 

"I asked you something!" said the Dark Lord. 

Spiro raised his head slightly to give his tormenter a defiant look. 

"No? So be it." Shrugged Voldemort and beckoned to one of his groupies to step forward. 

A slender figure approached Spiro and shouted in a harsh, but unmistakably female voice: "_Crucio!"_

Young Papafotiu writhed in the dirt, his whole body convulsing, his limbs flailing uncontrollably, and he heard himself screaming… 

"That's enough for a while," said the Dark Lord. "We want him alive and sane, Bella. So," he turned to the unfortunate chap lying on the ground, "have you changed your mind?" 

"About what?" growled Spiro. "I don't know what parchment you're looking for!" 

"No?" the red eyes glinted in an amused sort of way. "Are you telling me you have never been to Atlantis and never fought my Death Eaters?" 

"Er… boss, I'm mean, My Lord," said someone in a small voice. 

"What?" Voldemort barked. 

"Er… My Lord, I was one of those you sent to Atlantis… and the bloke we fought… he didn't look a thing like this one does." 

"Yeah, he looked different," added another Death Eater who had also taken part in the Atlantis-mission. 

"He might have disguised himself," commented Bellatrix. 

"Yes, disguised himself… or…" Voldemort's voice trailed off, "…or that someone who stole the parchment in Atlantis merely used his name," he pointed at the quivering Spiro. 

"U… used his name?" stammered Macnair. "That means we've been looking for the wrong person for ten months?" 

"Could be," grunted the Dark Lord. "Tell me, Spiridon Papafotiu, do you know someone… anyone who was likely to use your name?" 

"Yeah… I think I know someone who loves using other's names… he might have used mine, too," Spiro said, "but you can't find him, for he's dead." 

"Dead?" Voldemort scowled. "Who was it, then?" 

"I suspect Harry Potter," replied Spiro. He felt delighted to be able to tell the Dark Lord bad news. Even if he were to die here, the Dark Lord would at least never get the parchment he was so arduously looking for. 

"Harry Potter…" whispered Voldemort. "That's typical… that little fool keeps thwarting me… How come," he turned to those two Death Eaters who had mentioned Atlantis, "that you didn't recognise Harry Potter from his infamous scar? And what about his glasses?" 

"Oh yeah, he indeed had glasses. But his scar… Er…" the Death Eaters exchanged confused looks. "He… he didn't have it, My Lord. We would've noticed it if he had it…" 

"Are you sure?" Voldemort asked sarcastically. "To me it seems you wouldn't notice a troll if it started ballet dancing in front of your eyes!" 

Slowly he turned back to Spiro, and Spiro closed his eyes, bracing himself for the next Cruciatus that never came. Instead, he felt something peculiar… pictures flashed through his mind… _Am I seeing them because I'm dying? _he wondered. _If only Leto would notice I've gone missing, she'd be able to find me with the Tracking Charm… but no; she's in the Headquarters, nursing her little bastard from Jason… Oh sis, oh sis, why did you let that buffoon knock you up?_

While he thought this, more and more pictures kept running through his mind: he saw himself playing with his little sister in front of a pretty white fisherman's house. In the background the wind rippled the sea's surface, while seagulls kept diving in the water and reappeared with little fish in their beaks… A few years older Leto was fondling a kneazle while Spiro himself was exercising jinxes and accidentally set the thatched roof of the fisherman's house on fire… He and his sister were standing on either side of Nausika, who was showing them the Book of Athena, explaining its properties… his sister was chucking an ancient Greek vase at him, while clutching her bulging belly… 

By the time Spiro realised what Voldemort was doing to him, it was too late. 

"Your thoughts betray you," murmured Voldemort. "Your feelings are strong, especially for your… sister. So you have a sister… and she has a little baby… Hmmmm…" 

"Don't you dare hurt them, you evil, foul…" Spiro burst out and heaved himself into a sitting position, though it required a great deal of effort from him. 

"Oh, I wouldn't want to hurt them, now would I?" cackled Voldemort. 

"What are you laughing at? Potter's dead, and he took his secret about your damn parchment into the grave! You'll never have it!" 

"Perhaps I still will," said the Dark Lord calmly. "What I saw inside your head… wasn't that the Book of Athena?" 

Spiro's eyes widened. How could he let this evil creature get a glimpse of the Circle's life? He felt like kicking himself, but in his current state he couldn't even stand up, let alone kick. 

"You will get that book for me," Voldemort said. 

"No I won't!" 

"Yes, you will… but not right now. I'll let you heal… By the way…" He turned to his minions. "…this little capturing-and-torturing adventure has worn me out… I need a new dose of blood." 

"Shall we Apparate home then, My Lord?" asked Bellatrix. 

"No, it's not necessary, Bella." Voldemort shook his head. "We'd have to take this pathetic fellow with us, too, if we went home, and he'd only be a burden. Besides, I've never been to Greece before… I'd rather go and lie down on a beach, sunbathe and drink Cola with ice-cubes…" 

The Death Eaters looked at each other in horror. 

"Don't you understand a simple joke?" Voldemort rolled his eyes. 

"Oh…" the Death Eaters said, and forced out some laughs. 

"You go home, Bella, and bring me a dose of Amrita's blood." 

"As you wish, My Lord," replied the female Death Eater and Disapparated. 

* * * * *   
"You know that I could report you to the Aurors for this," said Arthur Weasley. 

"I know." Draco nodded. Inexplicably to him, he felt light - as light as a feather. He had told the whole blackmailing story to his father-in-law, and now he felt like a great weight was taken off his mind. He didn't even understand why he had told everything to Arthur, he only knew that it felt good to tell it to someone, even if that someone was now scowling at him, his eyes flaring with fury. Well, Draco totally understood Mr Weasley; he'd feel just as angry if it had been his daughter who had had to go through all this… "And… will you?" 

Mr Weasley regarded him with a piercing stare, then shook his head. "No, I won't. I should, of course, but what would it change if you got put into Azkaban? Nothing. It wouldn't change the fact that my daughter suffered for six whole years as your wife, and that your eagerness to catch her and force her back into slavery resulted in Harry's death. The past cannot be changed, Draco." 

The young man nodded, a rather nasty feeling building in his chest. He had only felt this on a couple of occasions; the first time had been when he'd sneaked out of Nikias' pension, leaving the sleeping Phaedra behind. Sometimes he wondered what Phaedra had thought of him after he'd left… she must have hated him as much as Ginny had. 

Yes, Draco Malfoy had pangs of remorse again. He didn't know why he started to feel it now when he hadn't felt anything of the sort before – he had done many evil things and yet he hadn't felt sorry after any of them… Why now, then? 

As he thought back on the moment when it had hit him that he must have killed Arthur Weasley, he realised that this must have done it all. The shock of it had somehow unhinged something in him, broken through a dam in his soul… and he realised that he _had_ a soul, after all. It was a weird feeling to _feel…_

"Could I… could I make up for it… somehow?" 

"I doubt if you could," Arthur replied coldly. "You've caused too much damage already, way too much to repair… You've totally ruined Ginny's life." 

"I know," sighed the young wizard, staring at one point on Mr Weasley's desk, not feeling strong enough to look up and meet his father-in-law's stare. "And I never realised this till… till now. When she left me – again. You know that when she left with Potter, she went after The Fates, but now… now she just left, not with a particular intention like last time, but… to be free from me." 

"I just wonder," said Arthur, "how she built up the courage to leave you when she thought I was still under the effect of that evil curse?" 

"Well, I… I think you aren't under the effect of that curse anymore. She wouldn't have left if you were… she loves you too much for that." 

Certainly Draco had put two and two together after seeing his father-in-law alive: Ginny must have known that the curse was broken, otherwise she wouldn't have left. 

"Do you think so?" 

"Yeah, I do," drawled Draco, hoping that Mr Weasley wouldn't ask him about ever trying to cut his hair. That was something he hadn't confessed to Arthur and he didn't ever intend to. After all, being sentenced to prison for a couple of months for blackmail was different from being sentenced to prison for several years for attempted murder… 

"I hope you don't want to go looking for her again." 

"No." Young Malfoy shook his head. "Over the night I realised things, and… and I don't want to go after her. I'm going to divorce her when she sends me the divorce papers, and I'll leave her alone." 

"You know, if I wasn't sure it was you, I'd think you were a stranger who had drunk Polyjuice Potion to assume your form," said Arthur, peering at his son-in-law over the top of his glasses. "You are talking as though you… _loved_ her." 

"That's the weirdest thing of all," said Draco with a frown. "I just realised that I never _really_ loved her. I thought I did, but… all I felt was the desire to have her, the desire for possession… She was such a pretty girl back in school, and I had been taught to get what I wanted to use whatever means to get it… I was a good student of my father. I wanted Ginny, for she was beautiful and she was Potter's girlfriend. I wanted to add her to my possessions, and I wanted to hurt Potter. So I did. Up till now I've mistaken love for desire… I thought I loved her, but I didn't. I thought she was the perfect match for me, because she was pretty and a Malfoy had to have a pretty wife… but it was the worst match imaginable. It made both of us miserable – yes, even me, though I tried to suppress the thought, tried to convince myself that I was happy as long as I kept Ginny in my power… But no…" he sighed. "I wasn't happy. I just hope she'll one day forgive me." 

"If I were in her place, I wouldn't," said Arthur darkly. 

"I wouldn't either," admitted Draco. "But Ginny has such a big heart… perhaps she'll forgive me. I won't give up hope that she will… someday." 

Suddenly the door of Arthur's office burst open and the twins marched in. 

"We have wonderful news…" began Fred, but as he caught a glimpse of his brother-in-law, he stopped in mid-sentence. 

"Wonderful news?" Grimaced Draco. "You mean Ginny fleeing from me?" 

"No," replied George. "But that's wonderful news, too… just not for you, Slytherin scum." 

"Well then, what's the wonderful news?" asked Arthur. 

"We're not telling it in front of him." Fred looked meaningfully at Draco. 

"Is it in connection with Ginny? Because if it is, you can talk in front of him. He just confessed about some rather… interesting things." 

"What sort of interesting things?" George crossed his arms, glaring at Draco through narrowed eyes. 

"In a nutshell: my dear son-in-law here made Ginny marry him by blackmailing her, using an ancient Greek curse that would have killed me if Ginny hadn't complied." 

"What?" George gasped. 

"How dare you?" Fred's complexion turned ruby red with anger. 

"Shut up, Weasel, what your father's just trying to tell you is that I regret it all. I feel terrible pangs of remorse, but don't expect me to start shedding tears and whipping myself to expiate, because you'd see me kissing Crabbe and Goyle senseless sooner than that." 

"Heh, I'd like to see you snogging them…" Fred grinned, only to get a withering glance from his father. "Ehm, so, you realised what an asshole you've been?" 

"So to say," grunted Draco. 

"What if he's lying? What if he's just trying to get to us so that we'd tell him where Ginny's gone?" suggested George. 

"I can assure you I'm not trying to deceive anyone now." 

"Have you heard of crying 'wolf', Malfoy?" said George. "You've been deceiving people for so long that it'd be a wonder if anyone believed you now." 

"Fine, don't believe me." Shrugged Draco, trying to look as nonchalant and superior as possible. However, deep down he knew that the Weasley boy was right; it was just beneath his Malfoy-dignity to admit it. 

"We'll take your advice on this: we don't believe you," said Fred. "I hope the Wizengamot won't believe you, either." 

"There won't be any Wizengamot," interjected Arthur. 

"What? Why not?" Frowned Fred. "He deserves to be brought to trial and sentenced!" 

"I said _no_," replied Mr Weasley quietly but determinedly. "The family's been through enough, Fred; a trial would only open old wounds. Also Ginny would have to be tracked down and brought to the court if there was a trial… and I don't want her to have to go through it. She's suffered enough. Remember, she just lost a baby." 

"Well, that's exactly what we…" began George, then trailed off and squinted at Draco. "Are you sure we can talk in front of him? I don't trust him." 

"Neither do I," answered their father, "but young Mr Malfoy here is in our hands. He's confessed too many things already, we know too much about his acts. He can't harm us, but we can harm him… don't you agree, Draco?" 

"Of course I do, father-in-law," replied Draco with a forced smile. 

"So, if he doesn't want his dirty linen washed in public, he has to do whatever we want him to do?" Fred wriggled his eyebrows. It was too good to be true… 

"Really eloquent assessment of my situation, Weasel," grunted Draco. "So, what is that great news you refused to disclose in front of Big Bad Wolf-crying Draco?" 

The twins exchanged a meaningful look. George nodded, and Fred spoke up: "Just an hour ago three elves came to our shop. They said they had worked for you." He looked at Draco. "But they had been set free by our sister before she fled. They said they came to us because they didn't know where Ginny was, and they didn't know how to find the Burrow either. They had wanted to tell Ginny something important, but they couldn't because this bastard here," he again looked at Draco, "went after Ginny and caused quite an upheaval. Fortunately our sis had enough composure to cast a charm that froze the elves and him," he looked at Draco once more with a belittling expression on his face. 

"So, anyway," George took the sentence from his brother, "they said that by the time they woke up from the charm, Ginny had gone and they no longer had the chance to tell her that her baby was alive." 

"_What?_" both Arthur and Draco gasped. 

"The baby's alive," repeated Fred. "When he was born, he seemed to be stillborn and the elves hadn't noticed that he was breathing because all his life-functions were very slow. Then, when they took the baby out into the rain to bury him, he started to cry. Very likely the rain functioned as some sort of a cold shower, like when someone who's fainted gets a bucketful of water into his face… the little one awoke, he started to breathe properly and cried. The elves were so shocked that at first they didn't know what to do. Then they thought of Dobby." 

"Dobby," Draco growled. For him Dobby was and would always be a traitorous little scumbag. But then again, his other three, freshly-freed elves were traitorous scumbags, too… 

"Yes, _Dobby_," continued George. "They took the baby to Dobby, because they feared that if they brought him back to Ginny, this idiot here would kill him, just because he looks like Harry." 

"Kill the baby?" Arthur arched an eyebrow at his son-in-law. "Did you threaten my daughter that you would kill her baby if it resembled Harry?" 

"What if I did." Draco shrugged. "Does it change anything?" 

"It doesn't," replied Mr Weasley, "but it's rather curious that you forgot to mention this little detail in your story."   
_If only you knew what other details I forgot to mention_, thought Draco. 

"Well, anyway, the problem is that Ginny has already left the country and she doesn't know that her child's alive. We can't even send her an owl telling her, because it was us who cast an owl-repelling charm on her, in case this bastard here wanted to track her down by sending her owls and following them," Fred concluded the story. 

"Well, Draco." Arthur turned to the blond wizard. "Here's your big chance." 

"My big chance for what?" Draco knitted his eyebrows. 

"You said you hoped that Ginny would one day forgive you for everything you did to her. Find her. Find her and tell her that her baby's alive, and I'm sure she'll forgive you." 

"But Dad! You can't let… him!" gasped Fred. 

"As a great Muggle woman called Anne Frank once said, 'I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart'," replied Mr Weasley. "Yes, even _him_," he pointed at Draco. "Even he deserves a second chance. He ruined Ginny's life. It's time for him to put it right." 

Draco regarded his father-in-law for a moment, then nodded. "I'll do my best, sir." 

"Right then, we're coming, too," commented George. 

"Yeah. We don't trust you, Malfoy," added Fred. 

"As if I cared whether you trusted me or not." Draco rolled his eyes. "But all right, I'll somehow put up with you two. Do you have any idea where to begin our search?" 

"Well," said George, "Athens, of course." 

* * * * * 

Peter Pettigrew stumbled to a chair in the Death Eater Headquarters and dropped himself into it. He was breathing heavily. He had escaped the Weasley boy and the Granger girl by a hair's breadth; he'd managed to shake them off in the crowd gathering in front of _Flourish & Blott_'s where Gilderoy Lockhart had been signing his new book, _Amazing Amnesiac_. 

He knew he couldn't have Disapparated as long as he was in Knockturn Alley, for that place was famous for being filled with splinch-jinxes. One could never know whether he would get splinched if he tried to Apparate/Disapparate in Knockturn Alley. So the only chance that had been left for Wormtail was to transform into a rat and run as fast as he could. Having left Knockturn Alley behind and turned into Diagon Alley, Peter could have Disapparated, but too much had been on his mind to think of the simplest possibility to escape… the number one thing on his mind being Amrita. Having made sure that the two youngsters were no longer following him, he had returned to Florean Fortescue's, only to _not_ find Amrita there. 

Now he was gasping for breath, his heart hammering in his chest. He wasn't gasping for breath because of the long and tiring run, but because of the shock of not finding the child where he'd left her. 

He didn't even dare imagine what would happen if the Dark Lord returned and didn't find his granddaughter here… 

"He'd kill me right away," he muttered, his eyes bulging with fear as he imagined the cruellest ways of Voldemort murdering him. "I'll go back to Diagon Alley. I'll go back… and I'll find her. She's surely there somewhere; perhaps she just got bored of waiting for me and went into the bookshop to see what that big crowd was there for… That must be it, she's surely strolling around in Diagon Alley, waiting for me… I've got to go back… but I need a better disguise this time… What… what to wear?" he kept muttering, wringing his hands. "If I… no… but why not? If… if I appeared there as a woman, no one would recognise me, would they?"   
  


An hour later Peter Pettigrew was walking down Diagon Alley, wearing make-up and a blonde wig (that Macnair had worn for Halloween the previous year, pretending to be a Veela), sporting some frilly robes that he had charmed to be lilac, and he had also borrowed Bellatrix's fancy earrings. When he looked at his image in a shop window, he almost shouted in fright. He looked like a total idiot, but at least no one could tell that he was a Peter, for he rather looked like a Petra… 

So Petra Pettigrew walked down Diagon Alley, looked into every shop, and even asked some people (in a rather high, mincing voice) whether they'd seen a little girl with curly, golden-blonde hair. 

"That girl?" said Florean Fortesque, "oh yeah, I remember her. She left with a pretty young woman. No, I don't know where they went…"   
  


Wormtail returned to the Death Eater Headquarters, feeling totally woebegone. To his greatest surprise he was more afraid for Amrita's well-being than his own health, although he knew that the latter would be in serious peril if Voldemort returned and leanred that the child was gone. His heart clenched at the thought that the woman who had lured Amrita with her could have been an evil witch who used children for experiments, or perhaps even sold them to slavers… 

He broke out in tears. 

Suddenly someone Apparated next to him with a loud crack. 

Peter looked up to see Bellatrix leer down at him. 

"What the heck are you wearing?" said the woman with a disgusted face. "Have you become a transvestite, Pettigrew? Female robes? Makeup? And what are you doing with _my earrings_???" 

"Er… playing Bella Enchanted?" 

* * * * * 

Nausika Kondos turned into a dark alleyway, heading for the Circle of Hermes Headquarters. As she arrived at the little square with the fountain, she saw a figure sitting on the rim. As she approached it, the figure looked up and Nausika thought she'd die on the spot. 

Impossible. 

"P… Potter?" she breathed. 

"Hello, Nausi." The young wizard nodded curtly. "Nice that you come, I've been waiting for a Circle member for over an hour to open this bloody door for me." 

"But… how are you alive?" frowned the Chief-of-Circle. 

"I thought you'd rather say 'what makes you think that I'll open the door for you'?" replied Harry with a grin. He couldn't help it; he just loved to tease the Chief. "Anyway, it's a long story and I have no time to tell you now. I'm here to warn Spiro. Voldemort's after him." 

"How… how'd you know?" 

"Visions," Harry shrugged. 

"Oh." She nodded. After joining the Circle Harry had told her quite a lot about his past with all the nightmares of the Dark Lord. "But I thought you'd learnt Occlumency well enough to close these visions out…" 

"I thought so too, but obviously I was wrong. I really have to warn him, Nausi. And you know… I'd like to see Phaedra." 

The Chief pursed her lower lip, looking contemplative. "How do I know you're the real Harry Potter? For all I know he's dead. This could be a trap to let you into the Headquarters… perhaps you're just using Polyjuice…" 

"And where would I have got Harry's hair if he's dead?" he asked back. 

"Oh, true. But you know the number one rule of the Circle: don't trust anyone…" 

"…but your pair," Harry finished the rule. 

Nausika allowed herself a smile. "It's you then… Holy Zeus, am I glad you're not dead." 

"Put the emotions aside and let's get in, shall we? You can hug me once we're inside." 

"Dream on, Potter." She grimaced and pointed her wand at the fountain that stopped ejecting water, then placed her palm into the dent in the pool. 

The hidden door to the Headquarters opened and they entered into the deserted entrance hall. 

"So, what's first? Talking to Spiro or visiting Phaedra?" asked the Chief as the door closed behind them. 

"Spiro first." 

"Good. Always get over the bad things, then enjoy the good ones." Nausika smiled. 

"Actually, I'm not sure it'll be an enjoyable experience to meet my wife," admitted Harry. "We weren't on exactly good terms when we last saw each other." 

"Because of your daughter's death." The Chief nodded knowingly. "But you know things might change now." 

"What makes you think so?" 

A mysterious smile appeared on Nausika's face. "I'm not telling in advance, but you'll be pleasantly surprised." 

Harry couldn't really imagine himself being pleasantly surprised by anything in connection with Phaedra. He had long realised that hooking up with her had been one of the greatest mistakes of his life. But then again, he had been young and deeply hurt when he'd met her… He'd just lost Ginny and got to know that Voldemort had used him as a mere stud to be able to blackmail him later… He had been weak. All his damn mistakes had come from his weaknesses… Perhaps Dumbledore had been right to say that he needed a spiritual support, for he was weak and instable alone. He could play Harry Potter, the Superhero, he could be invulnerable on the outside, but inside he was vulnerable. He just hoped he'd have the strength to do the right thing when the time came… he hoped he'd have a chance to use the powers given to him by Hades… 

Hades had conjured a little door into the air and opened it for Harry – beyond the door Harry had seen the cobble-stoned streets of wizarding Athens. Before he could step through that door and leave the Underworld behind, Hades had told him with a grin: "Good luck, boy, and make sure I never see that bastard!" 

"I'll do my best," Harry had said and left the netherworld through the door, leaving a part of his heart there – his family, many of his friends… But he knew the future needed him, the living had greater need of him than the dead.   
  


He knocked on Spiro's door. No answer came. He squinted at Nausika, who shrugged. 

"Spiro, are you in there?" she called, but still no answer came. "_Alohomora!_" 

They entered the young wizard's room to find it empty. 

Harry had a very bad feeling… 

They rushed to Leto's room where they'd found her cradling her little son in her arms – she almost dropped the baby when she caught a glimpse of Harry. 

"G…ghost!" she gasped, all the blood running out of her face. 

"No Leto, he's alive," replied Nausika. "He's alive and has come to warn your brother that the Dark Lord is after him." 

"The Dark Lord?" Leto paled even more. "But… w…what does he want from my brother?" 

"Actually that's something I don't kn… Oooooh, but I _know!"_ Harry slapped his forehead. How could he be so stupid not to think of it earlier? "Blimey, I think it's my fault… I registered myself in the Hotel Atlantis using his name and I stole a parchment from a couple of Death Eaters. They must have seen Spiro's name, and now they think he's got the parchment!" 

"And do you have it?" Frowned the Chief. 

"Nope. Burnt it for security reasons." 

"Security reasons? What if the Death Eaters catch my brother and torture or even kill him just because you burnt that bloody parchment for security reasons?" shouted Leto. The baby in her arms started to cry. 

"I don't know what will happen then… but I know what would have happened if Voldemort had got that parchment with the recipe of immortality," said Harry. 

"The point is that we fear your brother might already be in danger," said Nausika. "He's not in his room, and…" 

Leto hastily put the baby into his crib and snatched her Tracker out of a drawer. 

"Well?" 

Leto shook her head, tears of nervousness welling up in her eyes. "It's not working. This stupid thing can't show me where he is! This means he's either dead or…" 

"…or someone highly skilled has severed the Tracking Charm connecting you two," replied Nausika. 

"But… but… the Tracking Charm can't be severed!" Leto spluttered. 

"I thought so too," interjected Harry. "But if he's really in Voldemort's hands… you don't know Voldemort, Leto. He's the   
greatest wizard on Earth… for the time being. I trust him to be able to disable a Tracking Charm." 

Leto collapsed into an armchair and started to out-wail her baby. 

"I'm sorry…" Harry sighed. "It's my fault…" _again_, he added in thought. It seemed that whenever he wanted to do something good, whenever he wanted to help someone, he ended up causing greater damage than the positive outcome of his acts would have been. He had only wanted to save Sirius, and had caused his death. He'd only wanted to console poor 'Cho', and he ended up providing Voldemort with a blood-supply. He'd only wanted to save Ginny from Voldemort's clutches, and had ended up getting Dumbledore killed. He'd only wanted to catch a criminal, and instead caused his own daughter's death. He'd only wanted to help Ginny get to the Row of Gods incognito and prevent Voldemort from getting his desired recipe, only to get Spiro into trouble. Damn this 'saving people' attitude of his! 

"I think you should go and see your wife, I'll try and console Leto," Nausika whispered to him, and he was more than glad to leave the room.   
  


In a couple of minutes he arrived in front of the door to his onetime quarters. The name Potter still stood on a little plaque fixed to the door. He knocked. 

The door creaked open to reveal a tired looking, but very pretty Phaedra. She had changed slightly since Harry had last seen her: for once her face and body were a bit rounder, as though she had gained ten kilos. 

"Er… hello, Phaedra." 

Her knees buckled and he had to catch her. "Are you all right?" 

"All right?" she gasped. "All right, you're asking me? I saw you die and now you knock on my door?" She threw his hands off her arms, whipped out her wand and pointed it at him. "This must be a trick. You… you can't be real!" 

"Believe me, I am. I never died, Phaedra. It's true that I spent the last ten months in the Underworld, but I wasn't dead." 

Her eyes bulging, she backed away from him. "Who – are – you?" 

"I thought this wouldn't be easy," he sighed. "But it's really me, Phaedra." 

"Hah, of course!" she snapped, the wand trembling in her hand. "You were in the Underworld for ten months! And what did you do there, eh? Play Exploding Snap with Hades?" 

"No, actually I played Seeker for Elysium, but…" 

She started to laugh in a sarcastic, cold voice. "Playing Seeker for Elysium? Are you taking me for a complete fool?" 

He ran a hand through his hair nervously. He couldn't blame her for not believing him… 

This little move was what really startled her. Her mouth hanging open, she started to scrutinise his face, especially his eyes. "I   
can't believe it… Harry?" 

He nodded. 

"Oh, Harry!" She threw herself into his arms. 

"In case you want more proof that it's me… you have a Gorgon-head tattoo on your…" 

"Harry!" She boxed into his chest, half-crying, half-laughing. "I can't believe I have you back." 

"Actually, Phaedra…" he heaved a sigh. After such an enthusiastic greeting, it would be even harder for him to come up with the suggestion of divorce. Before he could carry on, there was a baby-cry.__

_Has Leto left her room?_ he wondered. However, as the crying continued, it became obvious for him that it wasn't coming from up the corridor, but from the inner room of the Potter quarters. 

Phaedra started chewing her lower lip. "Um… there's something I've got to tell you." 

"Yeah, I also think there is." He nodded. 

With a sigh she headed for the adjacent room and he followed. 

This room had once belonged to Daphne, but next to her little bed now a crib stood in the middle of the room - the same crib Daffy had slept in when she'd been a baby. Its lacy pink hangings were drawn back to reveal an angelic little girl whose tiny face was screwed up as she cried. She had black hair, but her skin was unusually pale for a baby with at least one Mediterranean parent. She couldn't be older than three weeks. 

So that was why Phaedra had gained some weight… she'd only recently given birth… And that was what Nausika had described as a 'pleasant surprise'. Obviously Nausika had thought the baby to be Harry's. However, he knew the baby couldn't have been his, for he hadn't been intimate with his wife for at least four months before Daphne's death. 

"She's beautiful," he said, "takes after her mother. Who's the proud father, by the way?" 

Phaedra gulped and looked up at him. "Draco Malfoy."   
  


**A/N2: **okay, so what do you think? 

_Trixiefirecracker_: Draco decided to try to be nice to Ginny, hoping that perhaps he could still win her love. No such luck. Yes, Lucius only wanted to make Arthur miserable (I think I mentioned that in an early chapter). Yes, Draco was attracted to Ginny but he also wanted to make Harry miserable by stealing his girl. Oh, and I hope you're happy now, you got the Phaedra/Draco child ;) 

_Spiro Papafotiu_: LOL, nice name :)) I got my information on Greece from a friend who spent some weeks there. She told me about the meals, the customs, everything. 

_kneh13_: can't tell you yet what powers Harry got. You'll find out in chapter 29. Will Amrita die? Can't tell either ;) 

_hypnotic-babe_: Harry could determine where to leave the Underworld, so he could get to Athens. All Death Eaters went to Greece with Voldie. 

_Brown*Pryde_: yes, Ginny will find out soon who Amy is. They _came_ across Phaedra ;) 

_MakingSpoonsIsMyPassion_: how do you make spoons? Just wondering ;) Only 6 chapters left. No, no sequel, no prequel, nothing. I might write an outtake, but not for the time being. My next fanfic project is an Artemis Fowl fic, so no HP ones for a while. 

_Myr Halcyon_: Ron and Hermione didn't meet Ginny in Diagon Alley, that's why they didn't recognise her. 

_C-chan1_: glad you liked Dobby's book :) Draco as a disease? Hmmmm... interesting idea. Toujours pur was mentioned in OotP, it was written on the family-tree-drapery in Sirius' house. Don't even mention that siamese cat song! It's horrrrrible! 

_Elfy19_: if you're writing "_That's wonderful." Nodded Ginny_, then you have to write it like this, because nodded isn't a way of _speaking_, but you can only write _"That's wonderful," Ginny said_ - because said IS a word meaning saying. A bit difficult, but that was in checkmated's writing guidelines. 

_Mistri, Tonks' Admirer_: Ginny thought that the Fates Charm must have expired, since the Fates had told her so. *shrugs* 

_Altec_: no, they won't be looking for each other for ever, this isn't a story like that. How did Dobby lose his way of speaking? Ah, that's just a mistake of mine, it's too weird for me to write elven language, so sometimes I forget about it. 

_DarkFlower2113_: don't worry, you weren't the only one who didn't manage to read between the lines. About 40% of the reviewers thought that the baby was dead. The baby was alive, but his life-functions were extremely slow. It happens on a rare occasion. Read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, there's a similar situation there. As for Voldie saying chap - can't help, I like that word, and I like making fun of Voldie sometimes. Forgive me for that :)) Your idea of Harry's powers isn't far-fetched, but no. It's something else. As Hades said, he couldn't give Harry a power that would _take things away _from people. 

_Swanny_: oh, that's horrible. I'm so sorry you worked so much with the EC summary for nothing! Actually I know what the book is about, but not in a detailed way. I have read Cassandra Claire's fics, but I only liked her Draco Dormiens and Sinister. Veritas bores me, I can't help. But I'm still reading it if I've read the first two, then I have to see how the third one ends. I don't think CC would want to learn anything from me, LOL. She's the most popular HP ff author out there, and I'm little insignificant Agi ;) I indeed feel special to be the only ffnet author you read :)) Yes, of course I'll gladly read your stories when they are ready. 

_Requiem to a Dream_: LOL, it's funny, but it never occured to me that the James stripping Snape of his robes was like Daniel stripping Kevin of his clothes. I didn't think of it once. If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have thought of it at all. So no, I'm no seer ;) 

_blaubaerin_: Blitzmerker? Does that mean that he realises things all of a sudden? I don't know this expression. Ginny only dyed her hair. No, the security guy wasn't Luna's father ;) Very interesting idea on Harry's powers. But no. It's something else. Something much more cruel. 

_SnowflakeGinny_: Ginny dyed her hair brown. Diguise. 

_Wood's secret lover_: no, Harry's new powers are very different. No brining back anyone in this fic. No sequels, this is a standalone fic. 

_kitkat_: yes, Arthur was already free of the Fates Charm, that's why Draco's severing charm didn't kill him. See, Malfoy admitted most things. But he will never admit everything. 

_Paige_: I also think this fic is better than Scandal and Shame, but for some reason my fave is still Enemy, not Fates. Harrison? No, though that would be a funny name. I'm glad that you like my Draco so much. I think we have Nick Hornby's About a boy in book version but I haven't read it yet. Dunno if I will. 

_gpotter_: if that Hungarian boy very handsome? ;) 

_*katie_: no, Wormtail didn't intend to leave Amrita there. Yes, I think I've heard Mozart's Requiem. 

_youknowwho8881_: six chapters left. 

_Noemi:_ miért vagy rosszul az elfektõl? Túlontúl cukik??? 

_maureen_: LOL, I can imagine you gasping and then telling your sis to shut up :D 

_Ally of Pirate's Swoop_: it was mentioned back in chapter 15 that the Fates Charm would expire on 20th June, so that's why it didn't work. 

_Michelle44_: thanks a lot, I'm always so happy when people tell me that my English is good :) 

_Any last requests_?: yes, Ginny's brown hair is a disguise. About Draco - sorry, if you don't like a redeemed Draco, but I like him that way. I redeemed him in Shame too... 

_Squalladaman_: truth be told I only remembered your name, but not that you had cricitised my trilogy. Did you? I really don't remember... the only big critic I remember is X-Tow-Naga, but he disappeared somewhere around chapter 7 of ITFA (I'm sort of missing him). 

_Inken_: yes, Draco was indeed ooc, but I believe that he isn't entirely evil. With the exception of Voldemort, every single HP character must have a hidden good side. What Anne Frank said (quoted by Arthur in this chapter) is what I believe. 

_Kristen Michelle_: fellow Artemis fan? I'm so happy about it! :D Who's your fave character? Mine is Holly, which is funny, because AF is the first ever book in which my fav character is a female. I usually prefer males (in HP my favs are Harry, Gilderoy, Albus and Snape and none of the girls). I haven't read Eternity Code yet, either, but I know what it's about. It has quite a saaaad ending :(( Well, let's hope Colfer will write a fourth book. Yes, Harry will remain invulnerable. 

_ifitaintbroke88_: Draco isn't _that_ heart-broken... 

Also thanks to: E_vilSeamonkey, Crazy Red, twinsofthesky, Houou Kazoku-Kaga, goldenstar555, Puzzle, dementorchic, Indigo Ziona, Embyr Black, TheSilverLady, torifire126, Mery, Kit Cloudkicker, EowynDernhelm, arios, moony*padfoot, Seven, Gaia, Katrina Littlebird, vulcancat, sugareeSWEET-xoxo, Romina, Chelsea of the Moor, Hannah, iNiGmA, enna seawave, Wizzabee, HELLO, sky69_


	26. All Roads Lead to Athens

**A/N:** thanks for the May the Force be with you's, but this time I don't think it helped :( The exam was extremely difficult and there was barely time to finish it. *sighs*   
This chapter contains a Pirates of the Caribbean reference. Can you find it?   
  
  


**Chapter 26**

**All roads lead to Athens**

_"Another Athens shall arise,_   
_And to remoter time_   
_Bequeath, like sunset to the skies._   
_The splendour of its prime."_   
(Shelley)   


"Oh, Ginny, I love this!" Amrita said happily, gazing out of their bus that took them from the Athens airport down to Pireus. "And that's the sea!" 

"Oh yeah," Ginny sighed as the vast blue water came into view. Bittersweet memories rushed to her – memories of Harry making remarks at an impatient German wizard, then the Hippobus appearing out of the Aegean, Megara the conductor fluttering her eyelashes at Harry and jealousy stabbing her heart like a lance… Memories of Atlantis and Harry admitting to her everything about his illegitimate daughter and letting Voldemort blackmail him with her… then Harry's 'proposal'… their first kiss after five years of being apart… Heaven on earth, it had been… 

Amrita, tugging at the sleeve of her cloak brought her back into reality. "Ginny, Ginny, what sort of an animal is that?" 

"A donkey, dear." Ginny smiled. Amy was such a lively little girl, and strangely she still had the ability to feel amazed by everything… as though she hadn't seen anything of the world so far. Ginny decided she'd soon ask the child about her past, but the little one had just lost her parents, it would be perhaps too early to burden her with questions like that. 

Then again, she found it quite strange that Amy didn't even look sad to be an orphan… had her parents not treated her well? Sometimes Ginny wondered whether the child had told her the truth about having to go to a terrible orphanage… but whenever she looked into those clear green eyes, she had to chastise herself: why would Amy lie? How could a barely seven-year-old be devious enough to deceive her? And why would she want to deceive anyone? She looked so innocent… And even if she was hiding something, with time she'd open up and tell Ginny about it. 

Ginny thought it was best not to bring up the topic yet, so she just let her little 'niece' enjoy the scenery. She had had no problem convincing the stewardesses on the London-Athens line of British Airways that Amy was her niece. It had been equally simple to use papers with the name Giselle Weatherby instead of Virginia Malfoy. Ginny had to be cautious – Draco had his ways of getting information from people, and had he wanted to look into the passenger-list of the BA flight, then he surely would have managed to.   
  


They got off the bus in Pireus and headed for the Flying Creature Repository that had an invisible-to-Muggles entrance. For a moment Ginny wondered whether Amy would be able to see it at all. _I found her in Diagon Alley, which must mean she came from a wizarding family, right?_ But what if she did come from a wizarding family but she had no magical powers herself? _Time to ask her family name, isn't it?_

"Um, Amy…" 

"Yes?" The child looked up, her huge green eyes sparkling with excitement over being in such a beautiful place and seeing the Mediterranean after having lived cooped up in a dusty and musty old manor somewhere at the back of beyond all her life.   
"What is your family name, dear?" 

"First you tell yours," Amy said. "It's not Weatherby, is it?" 

"No, it's Weasley." Ginny didn't know why she'd automatically told her maiden name instead of Malfoy… but it was nice to call herself a Weasley again. "And yours?" 

"P… Pettigrew." 

"Pettigrew?" Ginny frowned. "Do you know Peter Pettigrew by any chance?" 

"No, who's that?" replied Amrita. Actually this time she hadn't even really fibbed – she'd always known Peter as Wormtail and never even considered calling him other than 'Wormie'. 

"Nobody," replied Ginny.   
  


"A Hippogriff, madam?" asked the owner of the Flying Creatures Repository. "There are several Hippogriffs here." 

"But this one has been here for almost a year," said Ginny desperately. She already had pangs of remorse for having forgotten about the poor animal, but she knew that if she couldn't find Beaky now, she'd never ever forgive herself. 

"Oh, a male one with grey feathers, isn't it?" said the owner. 

Ginny's face lit up. "Yes, that must be him!" 

"This way, madam." 

The owner led the two young witches through the repository. Amrita kept pointing at magical creatures and asking what they were. 

"That's a winged horse, dear. That other one, too. And that's… ooooh!" 

"Ooooh what?" Frowned Amrita, following her companion with her eyes. Ginny was walking towards a stormy grey Hippogriff that seemed to be cuddling with a snowy white one. Around them at least six or seven young ones were twittering, flailing their tiny wings. 

"Beaky?" whispered Ginny as she approached. 

The grey Hippogriff looked up from his young and did not seem to recognise her. 

Ginny slightly bowed. "I know you must be terribly angry with me, Beaky, it was horrible of me to forget about you… but please, recognise me. It's Ginny, Ginny Weasley." 

Buckbeak's orange eyes widened. 

"I know my hair's weird, I just charmed it to be brown," continued Ginny. "You know… I've fled from my husband." 

The Hippogriff gave her a questioning look, and gave her the feeling that he actually understood what she'd said and was awaiting an explanation now. 

"You want to know why we never came back for you, right?" said the young woman. Buckbeak looked at her with an expression of sheer interest. "So… Harry… Harry couldn't come back for you… because he died." 

Amrita, who had been observing the little Hippogriffs, now looked up at Ginny. Had she just mentioned 'Harry'? Oh, surely she had been talking about another Harry, there could be a thousand Harrys out there… 

"Yes, Beaky…" Ginny carried on in a slightly wavering voice. "We've lost him. And I… I was under such pressure that… that I just didn't think of having left you here… I'm sorry." 

The Hippogriff leant a bit forward, and Ginny thought for a second that it'd attacked her, but instead the animal only pressed its head to Ginny's. 

"Ooooh… he's crying," muttered Amrita, who had never thought that a huge beast like this could show emotions like a human. 

"It's… it's okay, Beaky. He's happy now," hiccoughed Ginny, who was fighting back tears. "And I see that you're… you're happy, too. You have a family. And so does Remus. Imagine, he has a little son!" 

Buckbeak gave her a questioning look again, as if asking 'and you, Ginny Weasley'? 

"I don't have a son, if that's what you mean," whispered Ginny with a sad smile. "I had one… he died." She reached out to pat the Hippogriff's head. "But don't worry about me, Beaky, I'll manage it somehow. You want to stay here with your family now, don't you?" 

Buckbeak nodded his head and sent his mate a loving look. 

Ginny turned to the owner of the repository. "I presume I owe you quite a sum of money for keeping Buckbeak here for ten months. I'd like to settle my debt and I'll keep sending you money in the future, for Beaky seems to want to stay here." 

"No need, madam. You know, Esmeralda here is my own Hippogriff..." The owner pointed at the white female. "…and I was delighted when she hooked up with Beaky. She had always been too choosy, you know, but when she chose Beaky, I sort of adopted him, too. Now he's part of our family… I ask no money, madam." 

"Thank you." Smiled Ginny and turned back to the Hippogriff. "I'll visit you whenever I can, and I'll send Remus a message, telling him that you're thriving, so that he won't be worried anymore. Take care, Beaky." 

* * * * * 

"WHAAAAT???" Voldemort bellowed, pointing his wand at his old servant Wormtail. 

"The child has disappeared," Bellatrix repeated Peter's previous words, adding: "and it's this idiot's fault." 

"I'm so sorry, My Lord!" whimpered Peter, kneeling on the ground and quivering. Bellatrix had forced him to come along to Athens to report his own failure to their Master personally. "I just…" 

"I bet she disappeared while you were examining yourself in a mirror, wearing my earrings!" spat the female Death Eater. 

"What?" This time the Dark Lord looked surprised rather than mad. 

"Nothing," said Pettigrew in a small voice. "I just… I just went to Knockturn Alley to get some asphodel… because we'd run out of it… and I knew it was the main ingredient of your favourite asphodel-curry pizza, My Lord… and I couldn't leave the child alone at home, could I? So… so I took her with me… but Ronald Weasley and his Muggle-born girlfriend recognised me and I had to flee… and Amrita… she just… got lost." 

"Why didn't you go back to look for her if you'd been stupid enough to lose her?" growled Voldemort, slightly swinging his wand, indicating that he was itching to use it. 

"I did, My Lord, I did! But she couldn't be found anywheeere!" sobbed Peter, knowing what was next. 

_"Cruc…_" 

"No, My Lord, let me," said Bellatrix. "Don't waste your precious powers." 

"You're right, Bella." The Dark Lord stepped back and lowered his wand. "I have to spare my energies until we find the little brat. And actually I think I have an idea how we could find her…" 

"How, My Lord?" Mrs. Lestrange raised an eyebrow, her wand pointing at Pettigrew. "Er, yeah, _Crucio!_" 

While Peter kept writhing on the ground, Voldemort squinted at Spiro, who was being held in place by Goyle and Macnair.   
"He's going to help us." 

"I'm not going to get you the book, if that's what you think!" snapped Spiro, but as Voldemort's red eyes narrowed, he paled. He had had enough of the Cruciatus himself… 

"Actually, I've changed my mind," replied the Dark Lord. 

"Changed it?" Bellatrix knitted her eyebrows, while Peter's shrieks filled the air. 

"Yes, Bella, changed it. He's a member of the Circle of Hermes, you know…" 

She nodded. Voldemort had managed to find it out from Spiro by using Legilimency. "And…?" 

"All members of the Circle are taught to resist the Imperius, Bella. Pathetic member of the Circle he may be, he can fight it off after about a minute - I tried it on him while you were in Britain, and he did fight it off." 

Spiro gave Bellatrix and Voldemort a triumphant grin. However, his grin faded as Voldemort carried on. "Once I let him out of my hands, I can't control him with the Imperius and make him bring us the book, for the Imperius doesn't work for more than a minute on him. However, if I keep him constantly under it, if I keep renewing it every minute, he will have to comply." 

"In other words…?" Frowned Mrs Lestrange. 

"In other words, my dear, if our friend Spiridon can't bring us the Book of Athena, then we will have to escort him into their Headquarters and take it ourselves." 

* * * * * 

"Malfoy?" Harry raised an eyebrow at his wife. "Well, that's a surprise." 

"Listen, Harry, I… I was totally beside myself when I thought you'd died, and… it just happened…" 

"You don't have to explain things; I know what it is like when _it just happens_… it just happened to Ginny and me, too." 

"Did it?" She crossed her arms. "Didn't you say that nothing had happened between you two?" 

"I fibbed. To make sure that Draco wouldn't hurt Ginny until the effect of The Fates Charm were lifted… which must have happened…" His gaze shifted to a calendar hanging on the wall, "yesterday. She's free. Actually…" He started to chew his lower lip. "I wanted to meet you in the first place to tell you that it was over between us, forever. I want to get divorced, Phaedra." 

The baby in the crib started to cry again and the young witch scooped her up. "It's okay, it's okay, sweetie… It's okay, Harry. I can't insist that you stay with me when I cheated on you with a man… whose wife had cheated on him with you… my gosh, this is funny, don't you think?" 

"What?" 

"This… cheating. You shagged his wife and he shagged yours." 

Harry grimaced. "Yeah, really funny. But Ginny doesn't have a child from me, while you have one from Malfoy. Does he know?" 

"Of course he doesn't." Phaedra shook her head. "And he'll never even get to know." 

"Why not?" 

"Because… because I don't want him to know! He's a jerk, a total asshole, a disgrace to the name of wizard, the greatest git I've ever met…" 

"…yet you let him knock you up," Harry finished her sentence. 

"How eloquent," she wrinkled her nose. "Well, anyway, I thought he couldn't be a good father for my daughter, and then I thought of his wife – she wouldn't have been happy to know it either." 

"No, Ginny wouldn't have been happy," Harry admitted, remembering what Ginny had told him about not being willing to raise a bastard of Draco's. Surely Phaedra wouldn't have let Draco take her child for Ginny to raise – she would rather have killed Draco in cold blood – but if she had consented to Draco occasionally visiting the child or even taking her to visit Malfoy Manor once in a while, it would have been rather painful for Ginny… to see the child of her husband while she couldn't have one of her own. 

"You know," he carried on, "I don't think that Draco would be a bad father. I can't imagine him being a model daddy, but… one thing is sure: a Malfoy never lets his children go needy. Your daughter would be treated like a princess." 

"She's a princess already." Phaedra smiled. "My little princess." 

"What's her name?" 

"Dora." 

"Means a gift from God…" added Harry, then reached out to touch the baby's tiny hands and the little one instinctively grasped his index finger. It had been ages ago that he had last touched a baby… suddenly he felt a pang of jealousy. He was jealous of Phaedra; jealous of Draco… he'd never have a child of his own… Ginny was barren, after all. As for his daughter… he doubted if he'd ever have the chance to see her grow up. It was also possible that he would have to sacrifice her for the greater good… he didn't dare imagine what it would be like to deliberately let his child die, or even… kill her personally. But Voldemort had to be stopped, and the only way was to make sure he'd never get any more blood-supplies from Amrita… 

"Harry…" whispered Phaedra, seeing that he was silently crying. 

"Nothing," he sniffed and released Dora's hand. "I want you to know that I'm happy for you. She's really a gift." 

Phaedra didn't know what to say, whether to try to console him or not… she didn't even know what was hurting him. He had never opened up for her, never told her about his firstborn daughter and Voldemort's blackmail… he and Phaedra had been partners in fighting, partners in sex, but in nothing else. The only link between them had been Daphne, and after she had gone and Harry had 'died', Phaedra had begun to realise that her relationship with her husband had never been what she had believed it to be… she had deluded herself that they had loved each other, but she had to realise that he had never loved her.   
And slowly she began to realise that she hadn't loved him either. 

Now that she finally got him back, she realised that she was ready to let him go. 

"Um, Phaedra, I was telling the truth when I said I had been playing Seeker for Elysium…" he spoke up after minutes of silence. "I met Daffy down there. She's happy. She lives with my parents and my godfather. Everybody loves her. I… I just thought you should know." 

She leant closer and pressed a kiss on his cheek. "Thanks, Harry." 

* * * * * 

"You look sad," Amrita remarked as she and Ginny were travelling on the bus back to Athens. The bus wasn't full, and they were sitting at the very back, where no one else was sitting. Ginny had decided to not spend the night in Pireus where she didn't know anyone, but rather in Athens where she at least knew Nikias. 

She glanced at the child to see an unusual seriousness on her face – the seriousness of children who had had to grow up quicker than others of their age. Ginny wondered what this girl had gone through to behave like a little adult rather than a child. Of course, the child-personality had occasionally 'come out her' as she had gaped at the magical creatures or the sea, but Ginny put these down to the fact that Amy hadn't been to exotic places before and hadn't seen much of the world. The little girl was some sort of a mystery for the young witch, and she couldn't help answering: "You too look sad." 

"Really?" Amrita said. 

"Yes." Ginny nodded with a small smile. "Care to tell me why you're sad? Because of your parents? Perhaps I could help." 

"Not likely." Amrita shook her head. "I… I've been really nasty, Ginny." 

"Nasty?" 

"Yeah." The little girl made a grimace and looked out the window, as though quite interested in the trees flashing by. "I lied to you." 

"Have you?" Ginny frowned, though she didn't feel a bit surprised. For hours she had had a feeling that Amy hadn't told her the truth. "And what have you lied to me about?" 

Amrita took a deep breath. "I'm not an orphan. Just half-orphan. My daddy lives, and I want to find him. That's why I've escaped from my grandpa." 

"You escaped from your grandpa? But why did you live with your grandpa if your father is alive?" 

"Because… I have never met my Dad. For a while I even thought he was dead. But he isn't dead, and Grandpa was very angry when he learned that Dad was alive. You know, Grandpa doesn't like my Dad because Dad had th… thw… I don't know that word, but it means that Dad prevented Grandpa from carrying out his plans." 

"Thwarted?" Ginny helped. 

"Yeah, that's it!" Amrita nodded enthusiastically. "Daddy thwarted Grandpa's plans and Grandpa wasn't too happy about it. Of course I shouldn't know about this at all, but my friend told me about it. I shouldn't have told you, either, so shhh, this is a secret!" She pressed her index finger to her lips, making Ginny have a hard time to fight back a chuckle. 

"And you?" said Amrita. "Why are you sad? Is it because Harry died?" 

"How do you know?" Ginny's eyes widened. 

"I just heard what you said about a Harry to the Hippogriff. Who was this Harry? Your friend?" 

"Actually… he was the love of my life. A very special person. Courageous, generous…" 

"Just like my Daddy." Nodded the child. "He's very brave too, and Grandpa hates it that Daddy's brave. He'd be happy if Daddy was a bloody coward. But according to my friend Daddy was a griff, so he couldn't be cowardly…" 

"A griff?" Ginny blinked. 

"Or something like that, I could never remember it. It's something like griff… door?" 

"Gryffindor." 

"Oh, yeah, that's it!" Amrita's eyes flashed. "Daddy was a Gryffindork. But Grandpa was a Slitherout." 

"Slytherin," Ginny corrected. 

"In or out, does that count?" 

This time Ginny really had to giggle. "Actually… I don't think a Slytherin would be too happy if you called him a Slitherout. Draco surely wouldn't." 

"Draco?" 

"My husband." 

"And where is he? Why isn't he travelling with us?" 

"Because… I've escaped from him, Amy. We are both on the run, it seems." 

"And aren't you mad at me for lying to you?" 

"No, I'm not. But promise me that you won't lie again." Ginny reached out and ruffled the child's curly locks. 

Amrita beamed up at her. "You know, Ginny, if I could ever have a Mummy, I'd be happy to have one like you." 

"And I'd be happy to have a daughter like you, young lady." Ginny smiled down at the kid. "But I fear I can't keep you." 

"Why not?" 

"Because you have a father, sweetie. You'll have to live with him if you find him. By the way, do you have any idea where to look for him at all?" 

"Not really. He could be anywhere." 

"Then it'll be a bit hard to find him, don't you think?" 

"Yeah, maybe. But until I find him, I can stay with you, can't I? I like being with youuuu…" She yawned and bent her head on Ginny's chest. Carefully Ginny put an arm around her and gazed out into afternoon sunshine. 

_Have I made the right decision in bringing her with me?_ she wondered, fondly glancing at the child who had fallen asleep in her arms. She couldn't help feeling sympathy for the child, and something else, too… yet she couldn't have defined what it was. It didn't even occur to her that the child's features were familiar… even if she had had realised it, she wouldn't have been able to tell whom Amy reminded her of. 

"No…" Amrita suddenly groaned in her sleep. "No, please… I don't want to! Wormie, I won't go to him!" 

"Amy, dear." Ginny gently patted the child's arm to wake her up from her nightmare, but she didn't awake. 

"Evil… Grandpa… Voldemort… evil…" 

Ginny thought that she had been slapped in the face. Incredulously she stared down at the girl whose nightmare must have ended, because she kept sleeping but had stopped moaning. Wormie… _Wormtail._ Grandpa Voldemort… Amy… _Amrita. _Her father being a Gryffindor and thwarting her grandfather… The child's huge green eyes… that inexplicable feeling she had awoken in Ginny when she'd first seen her… 

Ginny's heart skipped a beat. She was holding Harry's daughter in her arms! 

Then something else struck her: the child had said her father wasn't dead. It made sense: it would rile Voldemort beyond imagination to learn that Harry – whom he'd believed to be dead – wasn't dead after all. But could it be possible? 

Suddenly she remembered a dream she had had back in September… Cedric had told her that Harry was alive… She hadn't been able to see the Thestrals, either… Could this mean Harry was really alive? If so, why hadn't he returned to her yet?   
Ginny's soul was in turmoil when their bus rolled into the station in Athens. 

* * * * * 

"I've talked to people and someone said he'd last seen Spiro around Nikias' tavern," Jason announced after having returned to the Circle Headquarters. He was giving Harry funny glances, as if not believing his eyes to see him alive. 

"And who exactly told you this?" questioned Nausika. 

"A street-sweeper." Shrugged Jason. "He'd seen Spiro come out of Nikias' tavern and turn left on the corner. The attackers – if there were any – must have got him after he'd rounded the corner." 

"What do you mean by 'if there were any'?" Frowned Leto. 

"What I mean, honey, is that your brother is famous for… getting himself into trouble. No offence, but he's a bit of an idiot."   
"Is not!" snapped Leto, her eyes sending flashes of lightning at her boyfriend. 

"The truth is that he is," interjected Harry. "It is possible – as my dear brother-in-law here has assumed – that he just got himself drunk and is lying in a stack of hay somewhere, dreaming of frolicking with a bunch of sirens, but…" 

"He's not the type!" said Leto exasperatedly. 

"Yeah, whatever." Waved Harry. "The point is that even if he'd drunk himself unconscious, the Tracking Charm should be able to find him. However, the charm has been disabled, the connection between Spiro and you, Leto, has been severed, and it must have taken great magical ability to sever this sort of charm. I don't think many wizards would have been capable of it, but I wouldn't put it past Voldemort to do it." 

Every single Circle member around the table gasped at the sound of the name, but Nausika remained indifferent. She, as a leader, couldn't let herself seem weak, could she? 

"Hey, have we missed something?" came a mellifluous voice from behind. 

Harry didn't need to turn around to see who had entered the Circle's Council Chamber, but he thought he'd fall off his chair in surprise. 

Three beautiful, slender women entered, all of them had long, brown hair and wore lilac robes. 

"Come on in, girls, have a seat," Nausika motioned to them. 

The three women sat down facing the door, and this way facing Harry, too. As they caught a glimpse of him, their eyes widened. 

"Well, if it isn't Neville." Grinned the eldest-looking one. 

"Actually it's not Neville… it's Harry," replied Harry. "I used to be a member of the Circle. And you three? What are you doing here?" 

"We _are_ members of the Circle," replied the youngest one. "How come you're allowed in here when you're no longer a member?" 

"I have good connections." Harry winked at Nausika. "Also, one of the members is my wife," he cast a meaningful glance at Phaedra. 

"Wife?" gasped the eldest of the three. "So that's why you resisted our charms… but you know," she looked at Phaedra, "your husband has a great singing voice." 

"The sisters joined us two months ago," said Nausika. "We had a bit of trouble with pairing them off… Shortly after you left, Harry, Jason's pair got hit by a curse that addled his brain and we had to give up on him, so Phaedra and Jason, both in need of a pair, formed a new pair. However, there were three of the sisters, so with them we made a little exception: they aren't in a pair, they are in a trio, and all three of them are connected to each other by the Tracking Charm. Ladies," she said, turning to the three sirens, "time to fill you in. Spiro has disappeared and the Tracking Charm between him and Leto has been severed." 

"Severed? How is that possible?" Nymph, the eldest siren knitted her finely shaped eyebrows. 

"No one knows." Jason shook his head. 

"But we suspect Lord Voldemort," added Harry. 

"Speak for yourself, Potter!" snapped Phaedra's brother. 

"Potter?" Nympha's eyes widened. "You mean Harry… Potter?" 

"That's my name." Shrugged Harry. 

"Holy Zeus, we almost shagged Harry Potter!" whispered Nympho, fanning herself with her hand, as if she was going to faint with pleasure. 

"Could we talk about my brother at last?" whined Leto. "He might be dying out there, and all you can discuss is sex?" 

"What did you expect, honey? I told Nausika that this would happen when she let these three into the Circle," grunted Jason, then bit into his lower lip as Phaedra kicked him on the shin under the table. 

"Well, all we can do is go and look for Spiro," stated the Chief-of-Circle matter-of-factly. "Jason, Phaedra, you go and investigate in the eastern quarter of Athens. Trio, you do the northern part. Gaia, Pasiphae, you go to the southern part, Nessus, Iphicles, yours is western Athens. Harry, you come with me to Nikias'." 

"And me?" Pouted Leto. 

"You stay here, take care of your son and Phaedra's daughter, and wait for your brother in case he returns." 

"Oh… okay," said Leto, somewhat dispirited. 

* * * * * 

Draco, remembering the last time when he'd come to Athens with Phaedra, tapped the statue of a pretty woman with his wand twice. The statue suddenly came to life and sprang aside to reveal a cobblestone street. 

"Kalimera," Aphrodite's statue greeted them in Greek. 

Fred and George exchanged a confused look. 

"Oh, yeah," said Draco. "What was that spell… Parsley… Parley… Pardon… Pendragon… aha! _Pange Lingua!_" He pointed his wand at the twins. "If I did it all right, you'll be able to understand all human languages and make foreigners from all over the world understand whatever you say in English." 

Fred's face lit up and he bowed before Aphrodite. "Pleasure to meet an angel like you here, my dear. How are you doing?"   
Aphrodite giggled. "Fine now, with such a handsome gentleman around…" 

"_A_ handsome gentleman?" added George, looking slightly hurt. "Actually, I think there's two of us here, milady." 

"Three, you mean," commented Draco with a wry smile. "Well, time to move on, Weasels, if you ever want to find your sister." 

"You said that as if it were only us who wanted to find her," George pointed out. "But it was _you_ who wanted to find her in the first place. We are only accompanying you, to make sure you don't put a toe out of line, ferret boy." 

Draco gave the twins a look of disgust and marched into the street beyond Aphrodite. 

"S'ry, fair lady, we've got to follow this idiot," said Fred, bowing to the statue again. 

As they stepped onto the cobble-stoned street, the entrance closed behind them. 

"Where now, ferret boy?" asked George jauntily. 

"Nikias. He's the only one I know here," grunted Draco. "And stop calling me ferret boy!" 

* * * * * 

"So, where are we goooing?" asked Amrita between two yawns. She never used to feel so sleepy this early in the evening – it was only six o'clock, after all – but she had never in her life experienced so much in one day: the visit with Wormtail to Diagon Alley, Wormtail disappearing and not coming back for her, Ginny helping her out, travelling to Greece on a fantastic aeroplane, seeing the Mediterranean Sea… She felt extremely exhausted and kept yawning every tenth of a second. 

"We're going to find a nice hotel, dear," replied Ginny, leading the child through the colourful and noisy crowd of Falaf Alley. 

"What is a hotel?" 

"It's a place where you can sleep and eat." 

"Uh-huh… Is the hotel far away?" asked Amrita, rubbing her eyes. 

"No, dear, we're almost there." Ginny shook her head, wishing they were up in a cosy little room at last and would be able to get some sleep. She hadn't slept a bit the night before: she had after all gone through the underground passage with the elves, frozen Draco and fled to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes when every normal human being had still been asleep. 

Finally they arrived in front of Nikias' tavern and entered to see it full of people – it was dinnertime. Two waiters were criss-crossing among the tables, serving gyros, tzatziki, mousakas, kalamaria and mpifteki. Ginny headed for the counter at the end, where Nikias was madly hitting the buttons of a till. "These stupid, stupid Muggle devices!" he cursed as the machine refused to open its drawer. 

"Can I help?" asked Ginny, bending over the cash register. "I think you have to push this one." She pointed at a red button. She remembered that Fred and George had had the same problem with a similar machine after having opened their joke shop. She had seen her father on several occasions, 'playing' with the till, as though it had been the most wonderful Muggle invention ever. She had to hide a grin at the memory, wondering whether she'd ever see her father and brothers again… 

Nikias hit the red button and the drawer sprang open. "Thank you missy!" The restaurant owner beamed. "Er… do I know you?" 

"I was here about ten months ago, Mr Nikias," replied Ginny, "with Ha… Colin Creevey." 

"Oh…" Nikias' smile vanished. "You are Colin's cousin, then." 

"Um… sort of." 

"You know, you don't seem to be mad in the slightest," remarked the owner. 

"Mad?" Ginny raised an eyebrow. 

"Er, well, you know, your cousin's wife and their blond friend said you were a raving maniac… but I think they might have got it wrong. You look quite sane to me." 

"I'm glad I do." Smiled Ginny as Amrita leant against her, barely able to support her weight. She had already closed her eyes, as though she had fallen asleep. "Actually, Mr Nikias, I'd like to have a room for two, and…" 

Ginny couldn't finish her sentence, for suddenly Nikias' eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he stared over her shoulder. 

"Hello, Nik, long time no see," said a familiar voice. "Have you heard about the kidnap that happened not far from here during the night?" 

Ginny thought someone had cast the _Tempus Glacietur_ charm on her, for she found she couldn't move; she was simply rooted to the spot. This couldn't be! It couldn't be him! Then again, Amrita had said her father wasn't dead and so had Cedric in her dream – had it been more than dream? 

"C…Colin…" stammered Nikias. "Are you alive?" 

"I think I am," came the answer from behind Ginny's back. "I'm investigating the case of a friend who is likely to have been kidnapped by Death Eaters." 

"Death Eaters? Here, in Falaf Alley?" gasped the restaurateur. "Holy Heracles, I hope you're wrong!" 

"I hope I'm wrong, too," sighed 'Colin'. "Well, Nausi?" 

"I'll just remain here for a while and make some inquiries," replied a resolute female voice. "You don't mind, do you, Nikias?" 

"Ehm…" The restaurant owner seemed to hesitate. 

"Don't worry, I won't scare your clientele away," said the determined female voice. 

"All right." Shrugged Nikias. 

"Good. I'll investigate the nearby streets," said 'Colin' and Ginny heard the floorboards creak as he turned on his heels to walk away. 

_Creak… Creak…_ The sound of steps growing fainter and fainter… 

Time had indeed frozen for Ginny; it was as though she had been watching a slow-motion picture: Nikias raised his hand to his nose to scratch it, but it seemed to take him half a minute; a couple of flies flew by, but they seemed to be rather slowly drifting through the air… 

_Stop this, break out of this! _Her mind screamed, and suddenly Amrita shifted by her side, groggily tugging at the sleeve of her cloak… That single tug was enough to break the ice, to unfreeze the frozen moment and make Ginny twirl around and shout: 

"Harry!" 

'Colin' stopped dead in his tracks. He knew this voice… 

Again it seemed a slow-motion picture as he turned around to face the brunette whom he hadn't even given a second glance while standing behind her and talking to Nikias. 

"Ginny?" he breathed, feeling as though his mouth had gone dry. She was as pretty as a picture, even with her hair dyed brown. He felt like running up to her and gathering her into his arms, but as his glance shifted to the child clinging to her, his heart sank.   
It was the little girl he'd seen in visions about Voldemort… his daughter. 

His daughter, whom he'd have to sacrifice.   
  


**A/N2:**

_Spiro Papafotiu_: 15 minutes from Falaf Alley by car? And by moped? ;) Do you have a moped? 

_D.Torres:_ only five chapters left. 

_Indigo Ziona_: no, Phaedra isn't really in love with Harry. She thought she was, but realised she isn't. 

_gpotter:_ "I think you're hot" in Hungarian is: "tetszel nekem". Pronunciation: tatsahl nakam. 

_Altec:_ perhaps Ginny just went to a shop and bought a bottle of hair dye. 

_Wizzabee_: yes, they will. 

_jnpsmama_: yes, Draco will find out about the baby. 

_Bill_: I'm glad Hades' comment confused you, that was my intention ;) 

_sky69_: not bad thinking... but can't tell you yet. I never watched Dragon Ball, I detest anime, can't help. 

_Imalil2sarcastic_: yeah, Ginny's baby was born about one-two weeks before Phaedra's. They might go to school together. But I will not be writing another next generation fic, one was enough ;) 

_Brown*Pryde:_ how did your science fair turn out? 

_Requiem to a Dream_: no, you're not right. Voldie used Legilimency on Harry in his seventh year, making him believe that he'd kidnapped Ginny. Harry went to the rescue, Dumbledore followed and got himself killed. That was when Voldie told Harry about Amrita's existence. Btw, nice to see you on deviantart! :) 

_Chelsea of the Moor_: which one do you like: Bella Enchanted or Ella Enchanted? ;) 

_Trixiefirecracker_: don't worry, Draco will be sort of happy at the end. His kid is called Dora. 

_kitkat:_ yes, Draco will find out about the baby, just not yet. 

_Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: yup, I cast a fertility charm on the fic ;) Funny that you wrote this, I never thought of counting how many pregnancies there were. Now at least I know there were seven. 

_OfTheWest:_ the kid you forgot was Tonks/Remus' kid, the only one conceived IN wedlock ;) 

_Paige_: was it nice in Florida? 

_Kristus Vesanus_: you wrote: "_You've given a whole new spin on the word "Crossover._" Er... why? Because I used a Star Wars quote and wrote Bella Enchanted? 

_Swanny_: I also envy people who can eat anything without getting fat. As for the reviews - I'm not getting *that* many. For Enemy I used to get around 80 reviews per chapter, while for Fates I only get around 60 per chapter. Insatiable, aren't I? ;) 

_Inken_: Arthur always struck me as someone who cannot feel angry with someone too long. *shrugs* I think JKR never elaborated on his character too much, so I was just guessing how he might react. 

_DarkFlower2113_: I have only seen PotC 5 times so far. Time to watch it again ;) JKR wrote in GoF that Voldie had a high-pithed voice, I didn't make it up, SHE did. I remember I tried to read some Ella Enchanted fics but didn't really like any. It's hard to find good fics in fandoms smaller than HP. I'm having the same problem with Artemis Fowl - there are too few fics to find really good ones. There are three Fowl books so far (there will be a fourth one too - there HAS TO be, for the third one ended really depressingly). You're clever, by the way. Not completely right, but still clever. Can you read my mind? You guessed Harry's reaction properly! Bravo. Yes, The count of Monte Cristo is spiffy book, my favourite after the HP ones. 

_Mistri, Tonks' Admirer_: I just thought it'd be cool to use quotes before the chapters. No peculiar reason. It isn't Harry who's got a tattoo, but Phaedra. And where is her tattoo? Somewhere only Harry and Draco have seen ;) 

_maureen_: yup, I've read Ella Enchanted - twice, to be exact. Lovely book. I haven't seen the movie yet. I read another book by Gail Carson Levine but I didn't really like it. It was The princesses of Bamarre. Have you read it? IMHO it's nowhere as good as Ella. 

_blaubaerin_: you can't imagine Voldie sunbathing? I can. Hilarious mental image :D Bella enchanted was a word joke, coming from Ella Enchanted (it's a book by Gail Carson Levine - a modernised and longish Cinderella story. I like it a lot). No, I haven't seen Dinner for one. A gorgon was a Greek magical creature who had snakes as hair and eyes that petrified everyone whom they looked at. I think JKR took the idea of the basilisk from the gorgons. Do you know the story of Perseus? Once, when Princess Andromeda was tied to a rock by the sea and the evil killer whale (or what) came to eat her, Perseus intervened - he had previously beheaded a gorgon and he showed the gorgon head to the killer whale and the whale got petrified. He saved Andromeda and they got married. End story :) Luna's dad isn't working in the Ministry, he's working at the editor's office of The Quibbler. 

_C-chan1_: yes, I have translated this already, but I'll do it again. It says: "What am I looking for here? They say that the famous lakem (? who's that?) grabbed my husband while I beheaded him. But that's not true, I'm innocent. I don't know why Uncle Sam says I did it. I tried to explain it at the police station but they didn't understand me." It was her husband who got beheaded, not lakem (I think). Saruman in a speedo? Oh my. I don't think I needed that mental image ;) I know that Arty won't stay memory-wiped, because in the epilogue of book one it is said that Arty kept using the People for decades. So he HAS TO remember them for that... go Arty!!!! *waves a flag with GO ARTY written on it* My favs parts are always the ones when Holly punches Arty in the face. It makes me think they'd fit perfectly. Awww... I'm turning into such a HUGE Arty/Holly shipper ;) I like Robin in Men in thights :) But I still prefer Johnny Depp. Colfer never wrote what Foaly looked like, so I imagined him with blond hair. Bit a Firenze-ish, I know... Is my Draco the best? That's interesting, no one ever told me that. 

_Katrina Littlebird_: Phaedra will kick Draco, but not in the butt (no, not _there_... she likes kicking people in the shin). 

H_arryGryffinGirl_: the newly freed Malfoy-house elves went to the twins and told them about the baby, that's how they knew. Read back in chapter 25 when the twins talk to Draco and Arthur, they mention the house elves telling them everything. 

_*katie_: no, Voldie didn't kill Wormtail. No, I haven't see Amadeus. 

_Wood's secret lover:_ I don't really know yet what I'd like to study... marketing or service management... and it's not sure I'll be accepted so I'd rather not say anything yet. I think 'spiro' in Latin means 'to hope', but in Greek it's just the nickname for Spiridon and doesn't really mean anything. 

_sugareeSWEET-xoxo_: no, I haven't yet revealed what power Harry got from Hades. 

_Elfy19_: no, of course you haven't offended me :)) Yes, I have read Ella Enchanted and loved it. 

_hypnotic-babe_: sorry, but I don't think I'll ever write a Draco/Hermione fic. I only write about ships that I actually believe in, otherwise I wouldn't enjoy writing the story and the story would lack the 'heart' I put into fics I base on my beloved ships. 

_Michelle44_: thanks for the correction. 

_Nefertiri_: nice to have you back, I've been missing you! :D (and I totally envy your inner strength to give up fanfiction for lent! That's such a loooooooong time! I could never do that!) 

_Mlle Katie Bell_: oh, another Artemis fan! You know how many of my readers turned out to be AF fans in the past two-three weeks? ;) (not to mention that I've recently 'infected' at least five-six people with my Arty mania so they are now fans too). And what did you ask from Eoin? 

_Belittled Giant_: you have a funny name :D Yeah, Harry has three kids (two alive, one dead) in this fic. However, that's nothing compated to my trilogy where he had fathered eight ;) 

_Kristen Michelle_: yeah, I like Foaly too, but unfortunately there isn't enough of him in Eternity Code. No, I haven't read anything by L.J. Smith. My fav HP character is definitely Gilderoy ;) For the time being I'm not working, but I might soon. It depends on lots of things. What sort of school are you planning to attend? Btw, you're a member in my group, right? As an Artemis fan, take a look at my Artemis arts in the Photos/Agi's OT pics/Book characters folder. There are loads of Arty arts there (the half of them are character illos from the books, the rest are products of my too vivid imagination ;) 

_dave2001soa_: no, I won't write a fic including Roman mythology, because it's very close to Greek (actually most of the elements of Roman mythology have been 'stolen' from the Greek...). If I ever do a new fic with any mythology, it will be the Inca. I find it truly fascinating. 

_Hues of Blue_: five chapters left. I don't know about Colfer's new book... I went to his website and there's absolutely nothing about Arty4, but he mentions other books he's writing, so perhaps that's what he referred to. And even if book four comes out in a month, my fic will only be based on the first three, there's no way of changing the plot anymore... 

Also thanks to: arios, _Karlea, Noemi, goldenstar555, kneh13, torifire126, moony*padfoot, BurningIce22, Hannah, Silvercrystal77, apple-pie, Alexander Phoenix, Jenni, Gaia, Sarahamanda, Kit Cloudkicker, SnowflakeGinny, Mery, Ally of Pirate's Swoop, Natalia, Hedwig55, Aerial Sparrow, carameLisSa, JustChrys, rebkos, bambooanime, iNiGmA, hi-voltage57, Any last requests?, dementorchic, luv ur story, sophianwin, phred doesn't like you, Myr Halcyon, Snuffles208, TigHan, Lioness-07863, Tap Dancing Widow, Pascale, carav,_


	27. Reunion

**A/N:** attention Artemis fans: I've created an AF fanart club on deviantart (see link in my bio, under the chapter illustration links). In case you have some AF art and would like to upload it there, then contact me for the password :) 

This is pretty much a bridge chapter, nothing exciting happens. But in the next one... just wait it out ;)   
  
  


**Chapter 27**

**Reunion**

_"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."_   
(Oscar Wilde)   


Before she knew what she was doing, she was in his arms, hugging him as though she wanted to stifle him, clinging to him as though her life depended on it, her head buried into his shoulder, while tears of relief were coursing down her cheeks. 

She felt like showering him with questions such as 'how did you survive?', 'where have you been all along?', and 'why didn't you come back?', but for the time being she didn't feel capable of it. And for now it didn't even matter. All that mattered was that he was alive, he was here in her arms, and nothing would part them again… no Draco, no Phaedra, no Dark Lord… nothing. Ever. 

Harry could barely hold back his tears, not when Ginny was sobbing in his arms, and not when Amrita was standing just a metre from them, looking at them with a questioning expression… she looked so sweet, her huge green eyes radiated such innocence, such… goodness. Voldemort's granddaughter… yet no trace of evil, no trace of deviousness could be seen on her rosy little face. She was the perfect image of an angel. 

_And if Voldemort turns up, I'll have to make sure this angel dies_… he thought, feeling a lump rise in his throat. Before he knew it, he was silently crying, too. He screwed his eyes shut to close out the image of the tired-looking little girl who stood there unblinkingly, her mouth slightly agape. 

"Harry…" Ginny said, sniffing, as she pulled back slightly, when she felt strong enough to speak. "How can you be… how you can you be alive?" 

"It's a long story, Gin, and I'd rather not discuss it here. Nausi," he said, turning to the Chief-of-Circle, wiping his tears away, "this is my friend, Ginny. Ginny, this is Nausika, the leader of the Circle." 

Nausika shook hands with Ginny and added with a little smile: "Why do I have the feeling that you're more than a friend for Harry?" 

Ginny blushed and Harry found it totally endearing. He hadn't seen her blush for ages… He hadn't even realised how much he'd missed it. How he longed to just stare at her and whisper sweet nothings into her ears… but it was impossible. Not here, not now. 

"Ehm… Nausi, would you mind if I went back to the Circle now? Ginny and I have a lot to discuss... also, the little girl seems to be tired." 

"Harry, she is…" began Ginny, but Harry waved. 

"I know. Does she know, too?" 

"Er…" Ginny had no idea what to answer, but Amrita made it unnecessary for her to answer at all. 

"You're my Daddy, aren't you?" she interjected. 

Harry hesitated for a couple of seconds, and then dropped to his knees to be at the same eyelevel with the child. "What makes you think I am?" 

"Well…" The little girl started chewing her lower lip, looking extremely thoughtful for a child her age, "you're called Harry. You have glasses. And once I saw a photo looking a lot like you in the _Daily Prophet. _Wormie has shown me the photo. You looked younger in it, though. So, am I right or am I wrong? Are you my Daddy?" 

"Yes, I am," he replied, resting his hands on his knees, not really knowing what to do. Had it been Daffy, he would long have reached out and gathered her into a fatherly embrace, but this child was different. This child had been out of his reach all her life, this child had been the subject of Voldemort's blackmails, this child had been the one for whom Harry had sacrificed the world, and whom he'd have to sacrifice for the world now. 

"Are you all right, Daddy?" asked Amrita with a worried expression. Harry was touched to realise that it was his own way of showing worry that he saw on her face… she furrowed her reddish brows the same way Harry had always used to… those stunningly green eyes radiated worry; worry for her father. 

_God, this little one loves me_! Harry's heart screamed and he felt like sweeping her into an enthusiastic embrace, but something still held him back. She loved him, that was clear… and yes, he loved her too, he had to admit. Otherwise he wouldn't have chosen her over the world, would he? But how could this little angel here love him? _Him? _The worst father ever? Surely Amrita must have regarded him a terrible father who never cared to try and rescue her from her evil grandpa's clutches… not to mention that Voldemort must have described Harry to her as a total scoundrel, a worthless, heartless beast… Voldemort must have set the child against him as much as possible, yet… 

Yet this child loved him. 

"Yes… yes, I'm all right, sweetie," he whispered, licking a tear that had run down to his lips. 

As he uttered 'sweetie', the child's worried expression brightened and with a little yelp of delight she threw herself on Harry's neck. 

Harry looked up at Ginny, who was observing them with a touched-and-teary expression, then at Nausika, who seemed to be surprised – she had had, after all, no idea that Harry Potter had another child beside Daphne and Dora (whom she and everybody else in the Circle believed to be Harry's daughter). 

Tentatively Harry put his arms around the girl's tiny body, but more carefully than he'd ever hugged Daffy… as carefully as though he feared he'd crush her. He'd never been awkward with Daffy, for it had been so natural that she was there and he could hold her, tickle her, blow raspberries on her stomach without doing her any harm… But this one was different. The curly-haired porcelain doll from the photos had come alive; still, he feared he'd break her if he dared hug her properly. 

"See, Ginny, it wasn't really that hard to find him!" Amrita grinned at the young witch over Harry's shoulder. 

Ginny couldn't help but smile, even though she knew well enough that Harry must be hurting now. She still remembered what he'd told her about becoming a father against his will, then getting teaser-photos of the baby for a year before Voldemort revealed the cruel truth to him… yet he had chosen to save his daughter and let the Dark Lord flee… Ginny knew how terribly ashamed Harry felt because of this. It must have been very hard for him to hug the child after seven years of only getting photos that conveyed the message 'if you put a toe out of line, she dies, Potter!'. Ginny also knew how much Harry had always hated that Linda for having seduced him on her father's orders, and she knew how hard it must have been for Harry to look at Amrita and realise that she pretty much took after her mother, too… No Potter had ever had red-gold hair, after all… Lily Potter's hair was said to have been dark red, while Amrita's was mostly blonde with a touch of red. She must have inherited it from that Linda, Ginny thought. She didn't know that Harry had long forgiven Linda; neither did she know that Harry had met Linda after their first encounter so many years ago… She didn't know what Harry was feeling, but she had a very good idea that he must be in denial, his soul in turmoil, thousands of emotions clashing in his heart. Love and hate, joy and sadness… and fear.   
Gryffindor or not, he had every reason to be afraid. Afraid that Voldemort might turn up, afraid that he'd lose his child again…   
It was Nausika who broke the silence: "I also believe you should go back to the Circle, all three of you. Here." She fished something out of her shirt and handed it to Harry. "This works the same way as the members' palms. Just put it where you'd put your palm." 

Harry took the object from her to see that it was some sort of a medallion on a chain. He had had no idea that Nausika had other means of opening the Circle's secret door, but then again, she was the leader, why wouldn't she have better access to the Headquarters than anyone else? 

"Thanks, Nausi," he said and scooped up the yawning Amrita. 

"Nausi_ka_!" 

* * * * * 

"So, this is your room?" asked Ginny, looking around. "Your… and Phaedra's room?" 

"It used to be." Harry nodded and headed for the little room that had once belonged to Daphne and now belonged to Dora. As he had suspected, Dora wasn't there for Leto had taken her over to her own quarters, given that she was the only adult left in the Circle Headquarters. 

"There you go, honey." He placed Amrita on the little bed that now stood in the corner, for Phaedra had put it away to make room for the crib. He tucked her in. "Sleep tight." 

"Don't I get a good-night kiss?" whispered the child, her eyelids already closed. "Wormie always gave me a good-night kiss…" 

"Wormie? Oh, _Wormtail_." Harry felt a slight wave of sickness wash over him at the idea of Peter Pettigrew, traitor of his parents, kissing his only daughter good night. Then again… Wormtail had at least kissed her, cared for her, while he, Harry, hadn't even tried to get her out of Voldemort's clutches. 

_I'm a bad father. A terrible father,_ he thought bitterly. He knew well enough that Voldemort had made it pretty much impossible for anyone to find out where he was keeping the child, so it was very likely that Harry wouldn't have been able to find her, even if he'd tried… but the point was that he hadn't even tried. _Shame on me!_

Slowly he bent down and placed a feather-light kiss on the little girl's forehead, to see that she smiled with her eyes shut – she'd felt his kiss and she smiled. And what a sweet smile that was… the typical father-heart-melting smile that he'd so often seen on Daffy's face… But this girl wasn't Daffy, he reminded himself. 

This was Amrita, his illegitimate child, granddaughter of Lord Voldemort. Daphne had been brought up by both parents, loved and cared for, but all this little one had experienced through her short life was being shunned, being humiliated, being hurt… and yet she could still smile… could still love. 

Suddenly it struck Harry how much this child reminded him of himself: growing up among people who hated him, looked down on him and enjoyed seeing him suffer… it had been the same for this child… maybe even worse than it was for him. The Dursleys after all had never murdered anyone, never sliced his arm open, and even though they sort of terrorised him, it didn't even come close to what Voldemort must have been doing to his granddaughter. 

Ginny entered the room – Harry saw it with the help of his 360 degree vision - and walked up to him. 

"Wonderful little girl," she whispered, gazing at Amrita, who must have fallen asleep, because she didn't start smiling now that Ginny was there. 

"Yeah, she must be… otherwise she wouldn't have got away from Voldemort," he whispered back. "Do you know how she did it?" 

"No." Ginny shook her head. "I only met her this morning." 

He gave her a curious look. "And why have you brought her here? Did you know who she was, or…?" 

"No, I didn't. But come, let's talk." She beckoned to him to follow her out of the room, into the living room. 

Harry quietly closed the door behind him and took a place on the couch, next to her. "Fire away." 

"I will," she said, "but first you do. I'm very curious to know where you have been all along, when everyone believed you to be dead." 

He took a deep sigh. "All right, then. I fell through the Styx and found myself in the Underworld. Hades turned out to be a Quidditch-maniac and kept me there to win matches for Elysium while Cedric was temporarily released to support his parents spiritually." 

"So it was true then," she said thoughtfully. "One night I had a very funny dream, in which Cedric told me that you were playing Quidditch in the Underworld. I found this so ridiculous that I didn't believe it." 

"Yeah." He grimaced. "I can imagine that. It really sounds stupid, but that's the truth. I sent Cedric to you to tell you I was doing all right and I'd be coming back. This was the only way I could send you a message… I wanted to make sure you wouldn't suffer too much." 

A wistful little smile appeared on her face. "I wish I had believed Cedric. Then I would have suffered less." 

He reached out to take her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed it back. "Don't worry, Harry… it's over. The Fates Charm expired, I left Draco and he has no other choice but to divorce me… and I have you back." 

"Was he very horrible to you?" Harry asked worriedly. 

"Just as always." She shrugged, avoiding his stare. She wasn't sure she wanted to tell him about their poor baby. Harry surely had enough problems, enough to worry about and be sad about at the moment, and it wouldn't do any good to add one more, would it? 

"Ginny…" he said in a somewhat firmer voice, "I know that look. And it means you're trying to hide something." 

"Those are my lines, Harry," she replied with a grimace. 

"Yeah, and as far as I remember, you didn't leave me alone until I poured my heart out to you…" he reminded her of her playing the psychologist so many years back. "It's payback time." 

She looked up to meet his eyes, but those didn't mirror the mischief of his words, they rather radiated serenity, encouragement and a promise to handle whatever she'd tell him with as much understanding and tolerance as possible. 

"Right," she sighed. "He was horrible. He got to know that I'd slept with you and he got more furious than I'd ever seen him… he locked me up in Malfoy Manor and made it impossible for my family to see me. If it hadn't been for our three house-elves, I would still be sitting there, having to put up with his tyranny, perhaps even…" Her voice trailed off, but as her eyes met Harry's, she knew there wasn't any reason for her to not say those words. "…perhaps even being raped by him right now." 

His grip on her hands tightened. "Did he…? Did he do it…?" 

"No, he didn't… but if I had stayed there, he'd be doing it now for sure." 

"What kept him from…? I mean… he's the type who'd do it just to take revenge on you for having cheated on him…" 

"He didn't do it, exactly because he knew I'd cheated on him," Ginny replied quietly. 

"I fear I don't get it." Harry frowned. "It's not like him to abstain from touching you, or punishing you…" 

"He didn't abstain from punishing me, but he abstained from touching me…" She took a deep breath. "…as long as I was carrying your child." 

His hands let go of hers, and as she glanced at him again, he saw that his eyes had widened with surprise and confusion. 

"Repeat that," he said, suddenly feeling that his mouth had gone as dry as a parchment. 

"He didn't abstain from punishing me, but…" 

"Not that, the other part…" 

"I had a child from you, Harry." 

"But… but how? You were… you couldn't…" 

"Aesculapius' pool healed you… and healed me, too. It made me fertile." 

Harry's eyes widened even more. "It made you… fertile? And we made love right there! I can't believe it!" Suddenly he reached out to grasp her hands again. "And? Where's the child? Is it a boy or girl?" 

"Harry…" 

"What happened to him… her?" 

"Harry…" 

"Tell me he isn't in Draco's hands now!" 

"HARRY!" she shouted to stop his tirade. 

"Yes?" He blinked, his enthusiasm evaporating as he looked into her eyes – into those dark pools full of sadness. His heart sank. He thought he already knew what he'd hear. After all, Ginny had said 'I had a child from you' – in the past tense. 

"He's dead. He was stillborn." 

"Heavens…" he muttered, his mind reeling. "It happened… about a month ago, didn't it?" 

"On the 21st of May." 

"It explains the screams then…" 

"What?" She knitted her eyebrows. 

"I had a very disturbing dream one night. You were suffering. I… I thought it had been because I was simply vexed after that attack by Cerberus, and I thought it was just the work of my overwrought mind… but… it seems it was real." He gulped. "I'm sorry, Ginny." 

"Don't be. It's better for our little son to be dead, because Draco would have killed him anyway." 

"Killed him???" 

She nodded. "Yes, because… he looked like you. Draco wouldn't have let him live like that." 

Harry felt he was going red with anger. "I'll get him…" he hissed, "I'll get him, I swear…" 

"No." She shook her head. "Forget it, Harry. Forget Draco. It's over. It doesn't matter what the past was like, all that matters is that the future is ours… I can have children now. As many as you want." 

He gave her a sad smile. "For the time being I'm having enough problems with that one single kid sleeping next door." 

"What's the problem with her?" 

"She's Voldemort's granddaughter." 

"I know. And?" 

"Voldemort will want her back." 

"But we won't give her back," Ginny said, as though it was the simplest thing in the world. 

"That's right, we won't give her back… not out of our free will, that is. As long as she's far from him, we are holding the aces in this game, but if he comes for her - and he'll come for sure -, then I'd rather kill her than give her back to him." 

"Harry!" she said, scandalised. "You don't know what you're talking about!" 

"But I do! You have no idea, Ginny… but I do!" he said, his eyes blazing with a passion she'd never seen in them. It was some sort of mad determination – something that almost frightened her. "Voldemort's living off Amrita. If she's no more, then he's no more." 

She shuddered. "I don't understand this." 

"When Voldemort regained his body so many years ago, he used my blood to do so. But he didn't suspect that it'd make him addicted to it. When he realised it, he had to make sure he'd get more of it… so he ordered that cow Umbridge to send him samples of my blood." 

"Umbridge? But… How?" 

"Umbridge gave me detention several times. Every time she made me write lines, and she gave me a special quill that used my blood as ink to do it with. Look." He held his right hand up for her. "See those thin white lines? Those are the lines her quill etched into my hand, while it sucked the blood out." 

"How dare she?" Ginny breathed, going as white as a sheet. 

"She dared, because Voldemort was blackmailing her. The point is that she kept sending him the parchments full of my blood and he used it. But, after a while, he started to run out of it… and then he sent his daughter to me to conceive a child, and he continued using the child's blood. He kept slicing up her arm every time he needed a new dose of her blood." 

"So that was why she was moaning that she didn't want to do something…" Ginny said, remembering Amrita groaning in her sleep while they were travelling from Pireus back to Athens. Now she felt even sorrier for the poor child than before. So young, and already being used as a means to blackmail Harry Potter and to make sure that Voldemort wouldn't… wouldn't what???   
"Tell me, Harry, what would happen if Voldemort didn't get new doses of your blood… _her _blood?" 

"He'd lose his powers. He'd become worse than a common Muggle," he replied. "You can be sure he won't get blood from me, and I'm not going to let him use even a droplet of my daughter's blood either. I'll prevent it – at all costs." 

* * * * * 

Draco led the twins into a tavern at the very end of Falaf Alley. The tavern was full of people, given that it was dinnertime. Greek music filled the air – syrtaki, perhaps – none of the three knew what sort of music it exactly was. 

"Not bad, not bad," said George admiringly. "I wish mum would let us listen to music this loud while dining." 

"There's the owner," murmured Draco and headed for Nikias, who was again having problems with the cash register. 

"Um, hello, Nikias, do you remember me?" he said. 

The restaurateur looked up, his face red with anger over the malfunctioning machine. When he spotted the blond wizard, however, his angry expression got replaced by a surprised one. "Seamus, right?" 

"Seamus???" Fred and George looked at Draco with questioning expressions. 

"Well, my real name's Draco, but… it doesn't matter. I'm looking for…" 

"Colin? Just met him," said Nikias enthusiastically. 

"Colin?" Draco frowned. "You mean… _Harry?_" 

"Er… could be… that pretty witch shouted Harry at him…" said the owner contemplatively. 

"Harry?" Fred cut in. "How can that be? He's dead!" 

"Well, an hour ago he seemed pretty much alive to me." Shrugged Nikias. 

"That bastard!" Fumed George. "He was alive all along, and he didn't even bother to look for Ginny! He knocked her up and he didn't even try to find out how she was doing!" 

"Well, that's Potter for you," drawled Draco. 

"Shut up, Malfoy, you aren't any better!" snapped Fred. 

"I still can't believe it… he didn't even care for Ginny!" George carried on vehemently. 

"Ehm… excuse me?" said a female voice and all three of them turned to see a tall and rather masculine-looking woman. "I accidentally overheard some of what you were saying, and it seemed to me that you were talking about Harry Potter and a certain Ginny…" 

"What if we were?" 

"Well, I just thought you wanted to meet them… but if it's not the case, then I'm not bothering you any longer, farewell, gentlemen…" 

"Wait! What do you know about them?" Draco called after her. 

She turned back to them. "They met here. And the woman had a child with her." 

"A child? So she knows about her baby?" Frowned Fred. 

"What?" Blinked the woman. "It wasn't a baby. It was a girl of about seven years… and she claimed to be… wait a minute, how can I know you don't want to hurt Harry or Ginny?" 

"_You_ came here to us, sister, and _you_ started to talk about them." Draco rolled his eyes. "But you can be sure we don't want to harm them. These two jerks here are Ginny's brothers and I'm her husband." 

"She's married, then?" The woman raised a black eyebrow. "I wonder whether she knows you're looking for her…" 

"I bet she suspects it, but… I'm not looking for her for the reason she thinks I'm looking for her… See… she thinks I want to capture her or whatever… but I only want to tell her that her baby – whom she believed to be dead – isn't dead. A long story, but…" 

"She believed your child to be dead?" asked the woman. 

"Not our child… hers and… Potter's," replied Draco with a grimace. 

"Whew, Potter has a whole bunch of children, then…" The woman grinned. 

"A bunch of children?" George knitted his eyebrows. "What do you mean by that, lady?" 

"Just call me Nausika." Waved the witch. "Anyway, Potter's wife recently had a child, that's one. Ginny had one, that's two. And the little girl with Ginny was Potter's too – that's three." 

"So, I'm no better than him, am I?" Draco sneered at the twins. "At least I haven't knocked up every single woman I met." 

"Surely because you're impotent." Fred shrugged. 

"Am not!" snapped Draco. 

"Don't shout, ferret boy, everybody's looking at you already…" Smirked George. 

Draco gave the twins a murderous Malfoy-trademark look, and then turned back to Nausika. "Do you know by any chance where Potter and my wife are now?" 

She gave him a secretive look. "Perhaps I do." 

* * * * * 

Leto was cradling her son in her arms, humming a lullaby. Little Dora was already asleep and now occupied the crib of Leto's son. The little boy's eyelids drooped and he yawned. 

Suddenly there was some noise outside Leto's door. Could some of the others be back already? – she wondered. 

When she had made sure that her son was fast asleep, she gently placed him onto the couch and left her room. 

There was nobody in the corridor, but she could have sworn that two or three minutes ago she'd heard footsteps. 

Who could be walking around here, where there were only store-rooms and the library? Leto's room was the only inhabited one around. 

She had a feeling that she should return to her little 'crèche', but her curiosity got the better of her. Wand out, she crept along the corridor, in the direction she supposed that the 'visitors' must have gone. Of course it could be possible that only those horrible siren-sisters had returned and decided to take a walk around the Headquarters… _Nosy folks, sirens_ – Leto thought. She had never liked them, mostly because her doubtful natural charms didn't come close to the stunning beauty of Nymph, Nympha and Nympho.   
  


Inside the library, Bellatrix handed Voldemort the Book of Athena, which the Dark Lord took with a hungry expression on his face. "Now I shall know… Potter might have stolen the parchment from me, but I shall know where it is, with the help of this little beauty…" 

He opened the book. 

_Hello, Tom Riddle, what can I help you with?_ a script in the book asked. 

"Tell me where the parchment that Potter stole from my servants is," replied Voldemort, slightly annoyed that the book called him by his given name that he hated so much. 

Nothing happened. 

Seeing the confusion on the Dark Lord's face, Spiro grinned. He was flanked by Goyle and Macnair and couldn't even move, but even the slightest annoyance for the Dark Lord filled him with malicious joy. 

"How does it work?" Voldemort growled at him. 

"How should I know?" Spiro gave him a particularly cheeky look. 

"Who do you think you're fooling?" Voldemort's red eyes gleamed with fury. "_Impe_…" 

"No, my Lord!" Bellatrix held out her hand. "Spare your strength. I'll do it for you." 

"Do so, Bella." Nodded the Dark Lord. 

"So, how do you make this bloody book answer you? _Imperio!_" She pointed her wand at young Papafotiu. 

Spiro screwed his eyes shut, trying to shake the curse off, but he was fighting a losing battle. He knew he'd always needed about a minute to manage to resist it… if only he could stop himself from spilling the beans to Voldemort for more than a minute… Why weren't any Circle members coming yet? Hadn't they heard when he and the bunch of Death Eaters had entered? Where on earth was everyone? 

_Come… someone… come and stop this… kill me, I don't care, I'd deserve it, after all I brought a dozen dark wizards into the Headquarters… just stop me from telling him…_

Rodolphus Lestrange joined Bellatrix, and with two people casting the Imperius on him, Spiro finally broke. 

"Just… grab… a fucking… quill… you moron!" he wheezed. 

"How dare you?!" gasped Bellatrix at the insult directed at her Master. "_Cruc_…" 

"No, Bella." Voldemort waved his hand. "We don't want to attract attention by letting him scream here. It is a wonder that the whole Circle of Hermes doesn't already know we're here. On the other hand, I can't blame him." He pointed his spidery index finger at Spiro, "I should have known that this pathetic book wasn't capable of responding to a human voice. But then… how does it recognise who opens it? Hm… most curious. Give me a quill." 

"Here, my Lord." Bellatrix handed him a quill and he wrote his question into the book, feeling a bit nostalgic – he still remembered those good old times when he'd created the enchanted diary... Lucius had once told him that a certain girl named Ginny Weasley had used it… For a second he wondered whether he'd ever meet this Ginny Weasley… 

As the ink disappeared into the book's yellowish paper, new words appeared: the book's answer in intricate Greek letters that   
the Dark Lord easily understood: _Ask Harry Potter himself._

"Can't it give one a straightforward answer?" Voldemort grunted. 

"His Lordship asked something!" Bellatrix pointed her wand at Spiro. 

The Greek wizard grimaced and rolled his eyes. 

Seeing that Bellatrix was losing it again and wanted to shout Crucio at Spiro, Voldemort grabbed her arm. "Don't. _Imperio_ will suffice again. Of course I could use Legilimency to get the answer from him, but… that requires too much of my powers, and I can't afford to lose any of them now…" He gave Peter a meaningful look, making the short Death Eater cringe. 

Suddenly two Death Eaters whom Voldemort had ordered to stand guard outside the library door came in, holding a deadly pale woman. 

"My Lord, this wench tried to eavesdrop but we caught her." 

* * * * * 

"Won't your wife be mad if she finds me here?" asked Ginny, resting her head on Harry's shoulder. She had already told him as much about the past ten months as possible: the memorial ceremony, her not seeing the Thestrals, Draco getting to know about her pregnancy, the story of her escape with the elves' help, her charming her hair to look brown, her meeting Amrita and also their meeting the happy father Buckbeak. She barely realised that it had been she who'd been talking all along, Harry had just listened. 

"I don't think Phaedra would be mad that you're here," he murmured, relishing the feeling of having her in his arms after ten months of futile longing. His heart ached at the thought of Ginny having had to suffer from Draco's tyranny, and especially for having lost their baby. He found that he would have been sorry for her even if the lost baby had been Draco's and not his, for it too would have caused her suffering. He wished he could wrap Ginny into some cocoon with himself and remain like that forever – to make her forget all her sorrows and protect her from more suffering in the future. But did she need his protection? Hadn't she gone on a dangerous journey with him to the Row of Gods to gain her freedom and secure her father's safety? Hadn't she fought Death Eaters at his memorial? Hadn't she successfully cast the Time Freezing Charm on Draco? Hadn't she been brave enough to fight for her freedom? 

Oh, yes, she had been. He kissed the top of her red head (she had turned her hair back to red) and she looked up at him with her beautiful brown eyes. 

"Why wouldn't she be mad?" 

"Er… because… well, you won't believe it when I tell you but… it seems that my wife sort of let your husband console her after my so-called death." 

"Console her?" She raised an eyebrow. "You don't mean…" 

"But I do." He grinned. "And Phaedra has a daughter now. From Malfoy." 

She gasped. "I don't believe it!" 

"You'd better believe it. She's an adorable three-week old by the name Dora. Fortunately she takes after her mother." 

Ginny couldn't help but let out a giggle, even though her heart ached at the thought of Draco having a daughter while she had lost her little son. "So… it's not only us who cheated on them, but they cheated on us, too. Not that it surprises me that Draco cheated on me, I mean, he does that all the time, but… with Phaedra? I can't help but find this hilarious." She nestled herself even more into Harry's arms and whispered: "But it's good to know that you'd never cheat on me…" 

Harry felt a lump rise in this throat and some invisible hand compress his heart at the same time. 

"Ginny…" 

"Yes?" 

"There's something I've got to tell you." 

She raised her head to look at him with a slightly worried expression. "I don't like that look." 

"And you will like what I have to say even less," he sighed. "But I think it'd be really cheating on you if I didn't tell you. You deserve to know… and if I ever want to live with you with a clear conscience, then I've got to tell you." 

She knitted her eyebrows, her eyes trying to read his features, but they failed. "What, Harry?" 

He took a deep sigh. "While I was in the Underworld, Dumbledore got this funny idea that I was weak…" 

"Weak? You?" She blinked incredulously. 

"Uh-huh. And to tell you the truth, he was right. There have been so many times when I was weak… when my weakness made me do things I shouldn't have… So, Dumbledore decided that I needed a… support if I ever wanted to face Voldemort again. He thought I'd again… crack up and let him blackmail me… I don't know, but… perhaps he was right. The point is that he decided to arrange for me to join with Linda spiritually." 

"Linda? You mean… You-Know-Who's daughter?" 

"Yeah. I don't know whether I can really profit from this union when I next face Voldemort… perhaps the whole thing was for nothing, but…" 

"What does it exactly mean that you're joined with her on a spiritual level?" 

"It means that if I ever call her name, even just in thought, she'll be there inside my head, or something like that, and she'll help me…" He looked down at his knees embarrassedly. "I don't know whether I'd invoke her, or if I did, whether she could help me or not… and apparently when I no longer need her, the link will be automatically broken. I really don't know… it's just…"   
Knowing that he had rambled totally incoherently, he glanced at her, his eyes trying to convey a message that she didn't understand. 

"It's just what?" 

"It's just that… in order to establish this link between the two of us we…" He bit into his lower lip, his green eyes boring into hers, and suddenly it dawned on her. 

"Oh… This is… this is… weird." 

"Weird?" 

"Yeah… she's dead, isn't she? Isn't she just a… spirit? How can one do it with a spirit? I mean, those are like Nearly Headless Nick… Everything just… goes through them." 

For a second Harry was forced to imagine himself shagging a ghost. He shuddered. "Nooo, it's not like that! I didn't go through her, I mean…" He ran a hand through his unruly black locks, feeling that he had never in his life explained a weirder thing to anyone. Also, he was slightly relieved that Ginny had rather asked an objective question instead of bursting into tears or accusing him of having cheated on her. "It's like… all the dead down there are pretty much like the living up here. They're… tangible, you know." 

"Was it any good?" 

"Er… dunno. I don't remember a thing of it." 

She gave him a quizzical look. 

"She used some charm on me… some power that Persephone gave her to… fool me a bit. They all conspired against me: Dumbledore, Hades, Persephone, my parents, Sirius… I felt like cursing them all, but… what good it would have been? It happened and there was no way to undo it. I just thought you ought to know that I felt like shit after I realised that I had been had." 

She reached out and cupped his face in both her hands. "The point is that in your heart you were never unfaithful to me. And if this Linda can really help you kick You-Know-Who's ass, then it was worthwhile." 

"Heavens, I love you," he breathed. 

"I love you too." She smiled, and after ten months, their lips met in a soft kiss. 

* * * * * 

Spiro gasped, and the woman paled even more as she spotted him. "Spiro! What… what does this mean? You… you aren't… one of them, are you?" she stammered in a beseeching voice. One of the Death Eaters who had apprehended her was fiddling with her wand that he'd taken from her by force. 

"Your sister, I presume?" Voldemort said in a mocking tone. 

Spiro scowled at the Dark Lord, then turned to the witch. "No, Leto, I'm not one of them. They forced me to bring them here." 

"But… why?" Leto's eyes filled with tears. She couldn't believe it was her beloved brother who had betrayed the Circle, and to none other than You-Know-Who himself. 

"Because Lord Voldemort wanted to question the Book of Athena," replied Voldemort casually. "Do tell me, girl, are you the only other Circle member here?" 

Leto's lips trembled and her knees shook. She gave the impression that she'd faint any second. 

"His Lordship asked you something." Bellatrix pointed her wand at the unfortunate young woman. 

"Y…yes," Leto muttered. 

"Good." Voldemort turned back to Spiro. "I asked you something. Can't this book give a straightforward answer?" 

Spiro didn't answer just glared at the Dark Lord defiantly. 

"Bella, give his sister a bit of the Cruciatus, it might loosen his tongue." 

Bellatrix raised her wand at Leto, but Spiro shouted "No!" 

"See, he can be sensible…" Voldemort said in a condescending tone. "Continue." 

"It won't give you a straightforward answer. It never does. All it will give as an answer is whom you should ask for the proper answer. It seems you won't find your parchment, ever," Spiro replied with a triumphant smirk. 

Voldemort turned his back on him and wrote _And where's Potter?_ into the book. 

However, the book didn't respond. 

"What now?" he growled with frustration and doubled back to glower at Spiro. "Why doesn't it work?" 

Spiro glanced at Mrs Lestrange who was still keeping Leto in check with her wand. "Because… it only answers one question for anyone." 

"Have you asked your question already?" Voldemort asked. 

"No," sighed Spiro. 

"Then go on, ask it where Potter is!" 

With a grimace the young Greek wizard wrote the question into the book, and it answered: 

_Ask Nausika Kondos or Virginia Malfoy or Amrita Rätsel._

"Amrita?" the Dark Lord gasped. "So… she knows where her damn father is!" 

"Her… father?" Spiro's eyes widened. Up till now he'd only known about Harry being father to the late Daphne and to little Dora. Who the heck was this Amrita? And couldn't Potter make boys at all? Only girls??? 

"None of your business." Voldemort waved. "Do tell me who this Nausika Kondos is and where we can find her." 

Spiro gulped, willing himself not to talk, but the image of the black-haired female Death Eater torturing his sister kept floating through his mind. He'd had enough of the Cruciatus himself and didn't want to expose Leto to it. He just wished that Nausika and the others would return and kick the Death Eaters' ass, but who knows where they were now? Certainly he had no idea that the whole Circle was out on the streets, looking for him. 

"She… she's the leader of the Circle, but I have no idea where she is right now." 

Voldemort's eyes narrowed, then he nodded. "You're telling the truth. Well then, I expect…" 

But what he expected was never revealed because in the next instant a baby's cry ran through the air. A mere two seconds later, another baby's cry joined in – the first baby must have awoken the second with his wailing. 

"Whose children are those? Yours?" the Dark Lord asked the trembling Leto. 

"One… one of them is mine," she muttered. "The boy." 

"And the other?" 

The Greek siblings exchanged a worried glance. They knew it would be risky to tell He Who Must Not Be Named that the other baby was Potter's, given the Dark Lord's well-known hate for Potter… 

"Don't tell them, Spiro," whispered his sister. 

"He'll find out either way," her brother replied sadly. "With Legilimency." 

"Oh…" she breathed. 

Young Papafotiu turned to Voldemort. "The girl is Potter's." 

Voldemort's face tucked into a devilish smirk. "Indeeeed?"   
  


**A/N: **review! :D 

_kneh13_: can't answer that yet, sorry. 

_DarkFlower2113_: Weatherby is the name that Crouch Sr. calls Percy, and then the twins keep mocking him with calling him Weatherby all the time. Nope, Harry can't sacrifice himself, because he's invulnerable. Oh, I'd be happy if you read Artemis and liked it. I have 'infected' at least half a dozen people with my Arty-mania already, and I hope to infect even more :)) I already knew puppetpals, but thanks for the link. It's cool when Harry and Ron 'bother' Snape :DDD 

_Requiem to a Dream_: I can't tell you which bit you were wrong about. You'll have to wait and see ;) 

_GoldenEmpress:_ your comment about only buying Artemis to read my fic made me grin :)) My fav character is Holly, but the character whom I'd claim for myself is Arty. Intellect is simply sexy, LOL *drools over Arty*. Yeah, I love it when Holly punches Arty in the first two books. Shame that she doesn't do it in the third as well. Oh, you've seen my Arty arts? Glad you liked them (there's some more now, check them out too)! Love me Mud Boy is one of my favs too. My other fav is the pic of the Butler siblings (it's one of the new ones). I love translating Gnommish too. So does my mum. She keeps leaving me messages like 'do the washing up' written in Gnommish! :D 

_Wood's secret lover_: I like the name Dora. There's only one female name that I hate and it's Agota. Yuck. 

_Tap Dancing Widow_: perhaps. Perhaps not. 

_Paige_: I'm green with envy, your journey sounds so cool. 

_Brown*Pryde_: congrats on your bronze medal! D/P will meet soon again. 

_Hedwig55_: I had a huge exam and I had to study for it, that's why it took me so long to update last time. I mentioned it in my author's note of chapter 26... 

_Nefertiri:_ yup, one of the elves stole Ginny's wand back from Draco, so she has her wand with her. Only four chapters left, and no sequel, sorry. I don't think I'll write another HP fic before book six comes out. I've run out of ideas, that's why I'm writing an Artemis Fowl fic this time. It feels cool to write something different for a change! Yes, I've heard about PotC's sequel, can't wait to see good ol' Jack again :)) I hope he hooks up with some girl at last! 

_Miss Effie_: nice to see people from checkmated here :) I'd be happy if you kept reviewing there, since I barely get response on that site... 

_Natalia_: are you by any chance the same Natalia who's reviewing this fic on SIYE? 

_TigHan_: yes, that's only a guess of his. No, Harry won't use the pseudonyms anymore. Grammar errors? That's funny because two native English speakers have read it through... how come they both ignored those mistakes? *looks confused* 

_Mistri Tonks' Admirer_: Amrita knows that Pettigrew=Wormie. Why wouldn't she know? Yes, you WILL see H/G and D/P together before the story ends :) I bet that little kids reading HP don't know that Nymphadora resembles nympho ;) Harry's heart sank because he though that he might have to sacrifice the kid if it came to that. 

_blaubaerin_: no, I haven't seen the movie you mentioned. The PotC reference was when Draco tried to remember the spell Pangue Lingua. It was like Jack saying parsley, parsnip, parley. I liked Nemo too, but my fav computer-animated movie is still Monsters Inc. I'm glad that Tokay is thriving, it's a really delicious wine :) 

_Ally of Pirate's Swoop_: Draco will only find out about Dora in chapter 30. 

_hi-voltage57_: Dobby won't tell anyone about the baby. Someone else will. 

_Elfy19_: my fav AF character is Holly. The second is Artemis, the third is Mulch, the fourth is Foaly and the fifth is Root. I don't really like Chix, I mean, he barely has a role! Yeah, but _can_ Harry keep Amrita from Voldemort? That's something to ponder... Only four chapters left. 

_C-chan1_: I haven't seen Elm street. The only movies I've seen Johnny in are PotC and Chocolate. Yeah, that HP/LotR crossover was indeed funny :) 

_angeleyes53_: yup, that was the PotC reference. 

_Katrina Littlebird_: are you sure I'm too nice for that? ;) 

_EowynDernhelm_: it wasn't a direct quote from PotC, just something very similar. It was when Draco tried to remember the Pangue Lingua charm. 

_apple-pie_: yup, there will be a big fight with the Death Eaters :) 

_Any last requests?_: I hope that Beaky wasn't drawn that horribly to make him look like a whale! No, no bulls for Pasiphae (dirty thoughts!) 

_Swanny_: what Mary or Percy? *looks confused* Yup, I've read EC (I'm reading it for the second time right now) 

_Tyster_: I hope you still have some hair left! :)) No, we haven't reached the climax yet, it will be in the next chapter and the one after the next. 

_rebkos_: the PotC reference was when Draco tried to remember the Pangue Lingua charm. 

_kitkat_: no, they don't end up in the same hotel. They end up at the same place though, but not in a hotel. 

_youknowwho8881_: if I write another HP fic, it will be Harry/Ginny again, but very likely I won't write one before book six comes out. 

_water-lily-113_: you asked how I'd fill five chapters. How? Well, enter Voldie, enter Death Eaters, and the most exciting part is yet to come. 

_splowey:_ yup, you got the PotC reference right. 

_*katie_: yup, Phaedra will tell Draco about the baby. Just not yet ;) Where do I get my ideas from? Everywhere. Mostly from mythologies and stuff I have read. But sometimes they just pop into my head and I have no idea where they came from :)) 

_Hannah_: the PotC reference was when Draco tried to rememeber the Pangue Lingua spell and said all sorts of stuff like parsley, pardon... About the name: *wink wink* 

_Kristen Michelle_: don't be so sure that he won't sacrifice her. I'm evil, remember that! A Gilderoy doll? Oh, I'm green with envy! Does it resemble Kenneth Branagh? Don't worry about EC not making you laugh, because IMHO EC is the most hilarious of all the three. Mulch makes up for the lack of Foaly, he made me rotfl all the time (especially his comment about cro-magnons, you'll see when you read it - I couldn't stop laughing for two minutes after that pun ;) True that EC has the darkest and most emotional parts of all three books, but it's definitely the funniest as well. 

Also thanks to: _David, Chelsea of the Moor, Spiro Papafotiu, Aerial Sparrow, dementorchic, Houou Kazoku-Kaga, Myr Halcyon, The Rock Says, sweet775, sophianwin, Hannah, sky69, Wizzabee, sugareeSWEET-xoxo, Lioness-07863, Imalil2sarcastic, hypnotic-babe, torifire126, Kristus Vesanus, Alexander Phoenix, LuluIsALobster, luisa, Michelle44, Sarahamanda, arios, carameLisSa, moony*padfoot, TrixieFirecracker, Altec, Crazy Red, BurningIce22, Written in stars, Indigo Ziona, Inken, SnowflakeGinny, Pelagia, Silvercrystal77, OnlyMe, enna seawave, goldenstar555, kraeg001, JiNglebellz, Dumbledore, HP Luver, Mery, iNiGmA, Jenni, Romina_


	28. Blood is Thicker Than Water

**Author's note**: to those who haven't read my HP trilogy: _Deminuo_ is a spell I made up in the Greatest Shame a Wizard Could Suffer - it is for... hem-hem... making unwanted erections disappear ;)   
Okay, prepare your wands/pitchforks/guns/lightsabers/cannons - anything you want to use on me. You'll need it.   


**Chapter 28**

**Blood is thicker than water**

_"The fearless are merely fearless._   
_People who act in spite of their fear are truly brave."_   
(James A. Lafond-Lewis)   


"What… what are you doing to that child?" gasped Leto as Voldemort touched the tip of his wand to little Dora's arm in Leto's room. A gash opened on the baby's rosy skin and she let out an ear-splitting wail. Had Phaedra been there, she surely would have lunged at Voldemort like a mother tiger, but the only Circle members around were Spiro and Leto and both of them were held firmly by Death Eaters. Leto's motherly instincts kicked in and her heart wrenched at the sight of mistreating an innocent baby like that. How could she have known that Dora wasn't the first baby whose arm the Dark Lord had sliced open? 

Amrita had had to suffer from the 'ritual' ever since she was born. 

Bellatrix conjured a vessel and tucked it under the baby's arm until enough blood had escaped from her vein and then Voldemort closed the wound with a swish of his wand. 

"Now it doesn't matter that Amrita's lost," said the Dark Lord with delight. "Perhaps this child's blood won't be as efficacious as hers, given that she has none of my blood, but she has some of Potters… and it'll be enough to keep me going until we find my granddaughter. Right, Wormtail?" 

"Y… yes, My Lord," stammered Pettigrew, half wishing that Voldemort would never find the little girl. According to the Book of Athena, Amrita knew where Harry Potter was, so perhaps they were together now… and something deep in Wormtail's heart felt joyful for it. He knew that if the Dark Lord got to know that he liked the idea of Amrita very probably being in Potter's hands, then he'd be severely punished… but he couldn't help feeling happy. In her father's hands Amrita would be safe, loved and cared for… if the Potter boy had let the Dark Lord blackmail him into letting Voldemort go in exchange for Amrita's life, then it had to mean he loved his daughter. Also, if Peter thought back to the schoolboy Potter he'd known for three years, he had to admit that he'd known him as a generous, kind-hearted and caring person – surely he'd be a good father to Peter's little angel? 

Peter heaved a sigh. Yes. He had always thought of Amrita as his little angel… and now this angel had finally sprouted wings and flown out of her nest. He hoped she'd be happy, wherever she was, whatever she was doing. 

Five minutes later the ritual was completed, and Voldemort grinned at his Death Eaters in a self-satisfied manner. "Now my powers are restored, and I can continue my search for the parchment. So… what did the book say? _Ask Nausika Kondos_… I take it she is going to return here sooner or later, if she's the boss of this pathetic little organisation. What do you think, Papafotiu?" 

Both Spiro and Leto looked at him warily. 

"I meant the boy," grunted Voldemort. "So, you expect she's coming back any time soon, don't you?" 

"I suppose she is," growled Spiro, "but if there is an opportunity for me to warn her not to return, you can be sure I'll use it!" 

"Yeah… I'm sure you would…" Voldemort smiled in an almost fatherly way. _"Crucio!"_

"Noooo!" Leto fought to get free from her captors' vice like grip, while her brother convulsed on the floor, his screams tearing at the air. 

"Why not?" Bellatrix smirked. "Your brother was impertinent. The Dark Lord only punishes him for his cheek." 

Suddenly Voldemort stopped torturing the Greek wizard and lowered his wand. 

"Are you all right, my Lord?" Bellatrix asked worriedly, seeing the weary expression on his face. 

"I… think I am, Bella…" replied Voldemort. "It just… it doesn't feel all right." 

"What? Torturing me?" wheezed Spiro. "Don't say you've taken pity on me, Voldemort!" 

"Oh shut up, Spiro!" Leto said in a beseeching voice, tears welling up in her eyes. If her stupid brother continued on like this, he'd be tortured to death for sure! 

"No," Voldemort said, but not to Spiro but to Bellatrix. "What doesn't feel all right is… the way I'm feeling. I feel… strange. Perhaps because of this unaccustomed mixture of blood…" 

The Death Eaters around exchanged confused looks – they had never heard their master talk like that. Apart from those thirteen years spent powerless, Voldemort had always been an icon of strength and invincibility, their idol who could not be vanquished in any way. But now… 

"I'm sure your body only needs some time to adjust to it, My Lord. After all, this isn't purely Potter's blood, and it isn't half his and half yours, either." 

"Yes, that must be it, Bella." Nodded Voldemort, inhaling and exhaling deeply. "I'm already feeling better." 

"And what do we do now, My Lord?" interjected Macnair. 

"Sit back and wait for this Miss Kondos," replied the Dark Lord. "Perhaps we should go back to the library…" 

"That doesn't mean we have to _read_?" asked Goyle with a terrified expression. 

Voldemort rolled his eyes, and even ice queen Bellatrix had to fight with her facial muscles to keep the appearance of indifference. 

"What was that?" Ginny gasped and drew back from Harry's passionate embrace. 

"Ehm… I think that was my… _eel_?" he said, turning slightly pink. 

"Not that!" She shook her head. "That cry." 

"Oh, that." He waved. "I expect it was either Boreas – you know, Leto's son -, or Dora." 

For a second it flashed through Harry's mind that his daughter would be awakened by the cries, but then he remembered that the child's room in the Potter's apartment had a silencing charm cast over it – a very special silencing charm that allowed the adults hear the child's possible cries coming from the room, but kept all noises out of the room. 

"No… it wasn't a baby's cry," said Ginny. 

"How do you know? How many babies have you heard crying?" 

"None." She bit into her lower lip and looked away from him, pain once again clenching at her heart. What she would have given to hear her own baby cry at least once! But no… hers had been silent… silent as a grave. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them back. 

"Sorry…" he said and reached out to cup her chin. "I should have known better than to say that." 

"I'm sure it wasn't a baby-cry, Harry," she replied seriously. "It was a scream… a scream of an adult." 

"But who'd be screaming here? As far as I know, the only adult here besides us is Leto, but…" 

The scream was repeated. 

"…it isn't a female scream. It sounds like the wail of someone – a male - being tortured." 

Ginny paled. "Cruciatus?" 

"Could be." He nodded. "Come, let's save him, whoever he is…" he said, although he already had a very good idea who it might be. Only Spiro was stupid enough to get himself into such troubles… Well, not that Harry hadn't got himself into much worse trouble, but he'd always managed to get out of it. However, Spiro had a knack of getting into trouble and not being able to get out of it. 

Harry muttered a quick _Deminuo_ with his wand pointed at his crotch and then crept to the door, followed by Ginny. 

After they exited the Potter apartment, he turned around and magically locked the door. If there were truly dark wizards around, they didn't need to know his daughter was here. Especially a certain dark wizard shouldn't know… 

"Done. No one will disturb my angel's sleep," Harry said and turned left. Ginny reached out and tapped his shoulder. 

"What?" he mouthed. 

"The screams came from the other direction," she whispered. 

"I know," he whispered back, "but first I want to get a clear view of everything. Trust me." 

She shrugged and followed him towards the entrance. Suddenly he threw out his arm to stop her and pointed at something.   
Ginny strained her eyes to see properly, for the Entrance Hall was rather dark with only a couple of torches here and there. Now she understood what he'd meant by getting a clear view of the situation: there were two hooded figures standing near the entrance. Obviously their task was to alert those who were torturing Spiro if someone tried to come through the entrance. 

"They're…" she whispered, but he waved to silence her and gave her an 'I know' look. The two standing guard most definitely looked like Death Eaters. "Stun them?" she mouthed. 

He nodded and gave her the three-count. 

As he put his last finger down, both of them whispered _Stupefy_ at the two guards, who fell onto the floor, clearly not expecting any sort of attack from behind, only from the direction of the entrance. 

"Well done." Harry grinned at Ginny. "Now let's tie them up, shall we?" 

She watched as he conjured ropes to bind the Death Eaters' unconscious bodies. 

"Do you know what this means?" she whispered. 

"Yes." He nodded solemnly. "Voldemort's here." 

"But… what does he want here?" 

"I expect the parchment." 

"The one you burnt?" 

"Yeah." 

Despite the seriousness of the situation, she couldn't help but grin. _Old Tom won't be getting what he wants…_

"And now?" She turned back to Harry. 

"We're going to save that unfortunate chap," he replied. 

"But… how many Death Eaters do you think there are? I mean… I know you're great and everything, but… if there are ten Death Eaters or even more, then we can't win, that's out of the question!" 

"Don't worry about me. Stay here and wait for the Circle members. Tell them what's up and that they should come to the library – at least I think the screams came from the library..." 

"Are you out of your mind?" she gasped. "You can't take on a bunch of Death Eaters AND You-Know-Who alone! Not even you are invincible! You'll be killed for sure!" 

"Bet I won't," he replied and started down the corridor, towards the source of the screams. 

"What do you mean by that?" She caught up with him. 

"Tell you later. Just stay here and make sure the Circle members find their way to the library." 

Ginny was about to open her mouth to object, but he pressed his index finger upon it, to silence her. 

"Trust me." 

There was something in his eyes that made her nod. 

Harry's index finger left her lips to be replaced by his mouth, but it didn't last more than a second. 

"Take care," she whispered after him, but he was already out of earshot. It was only then that it struck her how stupid it had been of her to let him go alone. However, she'd agreed to help him by staying here and notifying the returning members of the Circle of Hermes. The mere thought of Harry going into the lion's den alone gave her the creeps, but there had been something in his eyes that made her trust him. She hadn't the vaguest idea what he had in mind, how he could have felt brave/strong/stupid enough to face a dozen Death Eaters on his own… 

Now she regretted having agreed to stay here, while he was going to meet the Dark Lord and his minions alone… but a promise was a promise. 

The screams were getting fainter and fainter, although they should have become louder as Harry was drawing closer. Clearly Spiro was at the end of his tether, too tired and too much in pain to even scream. If Harry didn't do something soon he'd surely die or be admitted into a lunatic asylum, just like the Longbottoms had been. 

Harry swished his wand to Disillusion himself. 

_Ten Death Eaters, as I'd expected_, he thought as he peered into the library. 

Spiro was lying on the floor, panting, his eyes shut. He was in a bad state, Harry could tell from what he was seeing. 

"It hurt, didn't it?" sneered Voldemort at the unfortunate young wizard, who didn't have enough strength left to give him a defiant or cheeky look – actually he didn't even budge. For a second, fear tore at Harry's heart: if Spiro had died, then it'd be his fault. Well, it wouldn't be the first time that other people's suffering was his fault, but it still caused him such spiritual torment that it almost felt like physical pain. 

Leto was trembling in Goyle and Macnair's grip, while Bellatrix was eyeing the unconscious Spiro with a pout. She seemed to be sorry that he'd blacked out, denying her the chance to listen to more of his screams. Harry's hands clenched into fists as he examined the sadistic woman's expression. However, he had to exercise control; the time to strike hadn't come yet. 

In the background several Death Eaters stood with their arms folded, satisfied expressions spreading on their faces. 

The only one among them who seemed to be out of place was Wormtail; he kept casting nervous glances at the unconscious (or perhaps even dead?) Greek wizard sprawled by Voldemort's feet. _Besides worry, is it pity on his face?_ – Harry wondered.   
The Dark Lord and his Death Eaters seemed way too occupied with watching Spiro to notice Harry. Clearly each of them had thought that their two mates were well placed at the entrance and would warn them if someone of the Circle returned to cause trouble. Leto had, after all, told them that she was the only adult in the Headquarters, and Voldemort, the talented Legilimens had felt that she was telling the truth. Though somewhat unwillingly, Leto also informed him that Apparating and Disapparating was impossible into and out of the Circle, so the only way the other Circle members could have returned was through the front door. Thus, Voldemort was firm in the belief that his guards would alert him if anyone tried to enter – how could he or even Leto have known that Harry had returned even before they arrived here? Even though outnumbered ten to one, Harry still was holding the aces in this game: the Death Eaters weren't aware of his presence. 

For a couple of seconds he examined the room he was peering into, analysing the chances of taking action. He knew that this had to be the final battle between him and Voldemort, and he had to win. He had to fulfil Sybill Trelawney's prophecy by vanquishing the Dark Lord… by killing the Dark Lord… 

All that Trelawney hadn't known was that there were many ways of killing someone… and Harry hoped he'd have a chance to do it the way he had planned in Elysium. However, for that he had to make sure Voldemort would run out of his magic-supplies provided by Amrita's blood. He didn't know how long it usually took the Dark Lord to use up his powers, but he surmised that heavy battling would quicken the process, as heavy exertion always drains one's energies. For the average wizard, magical powers weren't like normal energies: they never run out; but Voldemort had long been far from normal… Harry only had to do one last thing before entering the room. 

_Linda?_ he thought. 

Yes, Harry? came the answer. 

_I'd like you to remain with me now for a while_. 

Wow, is it time already? her voice sounded excited inside of his head. 

_Seems so. At least I hope so… It's got to be now, Linda. If I don't deal with it now, I don't know when I'll be able to try again._

Uh-huh… Do you know anything about Amrita? she asked in a slightly worried voice. 

_She escaped from Voldemort_, he replied, _and is peacefully sleeping in a room nearby. If I manage to close my mind to him, then he won't get to know she's here… until it's too late for him._

I see. Actually, I see everything you see… this is weird! 

_How do you see things I see? Isn't the link between us supposed to work only in an audible form?_

I thought so too… but apparently I was wrong. It's most definitely audiovisual. Great… Look at Father, I'd like to see him through your eyes. 

Harry edged into the room and squinted at Voldemort, who seemed to be eyeing Spiro in a bored sort of way, as though he had been robbed of an entertaining toy. Harry's heart sank at the thought that perhaps Spiro was dead already. If he were, then it'd be definitely Harry's fault. 

Don't blame yourself Linda told him gently. 

_Uh… forgot you were here_, he thought. He still had to get used to having someone talk inside his head. 

I can imagine that, it's creepy for me, too… but let's hope it'll end soon. 

He didn't have time to question what she meant by 'it'll end soon', because Spiro suddenly stirred and a diabolic smile spread on both Voldemort and Bellatrix's face. 

"May I carry on, My Lord?" asked the woman hopefully. 

Voldemort made a wide, sweeping gesture with his hand, indicating that the chance to continue torturing the unfortunate wizard was hers. 

"No! Please!" Leto burst out, struggling against Macnair and Goyle's vice-like grip that held her in place. "He's going to die if he gets one more blast!" 

"I know," replied the Dark Lord coolly. "Bella, feel free to carry on." 

Tears welled up in Leto's eyes as Bellatrix raised her wand with an insane grin of satisfaction on her once-pretty face. The tears were blurring Leto's vision so much that at first she didn't even notice Bellatrix's wand ripped out of her hand. 

The female Death Eater gasped and looked around, but didn't spot Harry, for he blended with the granite wall perfectly. 

"My wand!" screamed Mrs Lestrange with frustration. All Death Eaters looked around, searching for the source of   
disturbance, but to no avail. Bellatrix's wand was ballet dancing in the air, just out of her reach – Harry didn't want to move it to himself, for Bellatrix's wand wasn't Disillusioned, and it would have revealed his position if he'd caught it. 

"Invisibility Cloak?" Rodolphus Lestrange wondered. 

_I never thought that Disillusionment could be this effective_, Harry thought, then suddenly felt something touch his feet: it was a rat, and when Harry looked down, it scurried away. When it had put enough distance between itself and Harry, changed back into Wormtail. 

He's scented you out Linda voiced her opinion. 

_I kn_… he began and shifted nervously. It was a mistake to shift. 

"There!" shouted Rodolphus, pointing in Harry's direction. 

Eight wands fired curses at the point Harry's been standing on a second earlier. Had he had time to think, he would have blessed his Quidditch-honed reflexes and as well as thought really bad things about Peter Pettigrew. However, he didn't even have time to let a single thought run through his mind, for the Death Eaters pelted the area around him with curses. Now that they were aware that Harry was there, it was easier for the Death Eaters to make him out against the grey wall – it was enough for Harry to budge a bit, and this little movement revealed his position. It was pretty much like being a chameleon: as long as a chameleon doesn't move, it's quite difficult to make out against the backdrop of lush green shrubbery, but as soon as it moves, it becomes easier to notice, especially for predators that hunt for moving prey. The Death Eaters proved to be talented predators and showered their prey with _Stupefy_'s, _Expelliarmus_es, Reductor Curses and even with a Killing Curse… only to have to duck out of the way of their rebound spells. 

_Whew, I forgot that I was invulnerable!_ thought Harry, his heart hammering in his throat, his body full of adrenaline. Surely he wouldn't otherwise have been able to defend himself against ten Death Eaters at once, would he? Had he not become invulnerable by falling through Styx, he'd be dead, or at least seriously injured now. 

It seems it gave Daddy quite a shock remarked Linda. 

Indeed, Voldemort was eyeing Harry with some sort of reverence and fear. He'd never in his life seen a Shield Charm powerful enough to send a whole torrent of curses back at their originators. 

"Stop, you idiots, and lower your wands," he growled. "I want him alive… at least for a while." 

Somewhat confused, the Death Eaters obeyed. 

"Aren't you afraid I'll curse them into next week if they lower their wands like that?" said Harry calmly, leaning against the wall, nonchalantly as though Voldemort were a barman whom he wanted to ask for a bit of Ogden's Old Firewhisky. To enhance the effect that his casualness had on the Death Eaters, Harry focused on ending the Disillusionment charm. It wasn't useful anymore, so why keep it? This way at least the Death Eaters – and most importantly Voldemort – could make out his expression, and, as Harry was expecting, cheeky grins and knowing looks were exactly what he needed to give the Dark Lord now. 

"Still cheeky, aren't we, Potter?" Voldemort's eyes narrowed. "You were this cheeky last time we met, too… but then I put my cards on the table, and you realised that all the aces were in my possession…" 

"But they aren't this time," said Harry, folding his arms. 

"I have the child!" rumbled Voldemort. Somewhere behind him, Bellatrix ducked for her wand that Harry had let fall when he was pelted by dozens of curses at once. 

For a second Harry felt like telling Voldemort 'no, you don't', but he thought better of it, because such an assertion would lead to questions like 'how do you know? Do you have her by any chance?', and although Harry had learnt Occlumency quite well, he wasn't sure he'd be able to completely close his mind against the Dark Lord's assault. He had twice dreamed about Voldemort in the last ten months, after all, and it had to mean that Voldemort, although unintentionally, still could penetrate his mind. So, if Voldemort wanted to, then very likely he would still be able to hear Harry's thoughts and Harry couldn't risk giving Voldemort a reason to want to look into his mind. 

"Yeah, you have her." He nodded at Voldemort. "And?" 

"And? And what?" Voldemort's snake-like nostrils flared, showing how irritated he was. "You know that she dies if you even try to hurt me." 

"You know, Voldemort, I think that life under your authority must be worse for her than death. So… by all means, kill her…"   
He gave the Dark Lord a meaningful look. "…if you feel you no longer need her blood-donations." 

Harry could hear Bellatrix and someone else – perhaps Wormtail – gasp, and Voldemort's pallid face got even whiter than usual. 

"How do you know about that?" 

"Dolores Umbridge told me." Harry shrugged. 

"Umbridge?" Voldemort's eyes widened. "But she's dead!" 

"Now you tell me." Harry rolled his eyes. 

"Right. I don't care how you got to know it, whether you conjured up her spirit or what…" 

"…all that counts is that I know it," Harry finished the Dark Lord's sentence. "You won't kill Amrita because you need her. Without her you'd be no one. Worse than a Mudblood, worse than a Squib, worse than a common Muggle…" By every word Harry uttered, Voldemort's complexion grew paler and paler. "It hurts, doesn't it? The truth can be so cruel sometimes…" 

"Enough of this, My Lord, let us kill him!" Bellatrix shouted. 

"Right. Kill me. Then you'll lose the last resource of power, Voldemort," said Harry. 

The Dark Lord regarded him curiously. "So the book was right, then. You know that Amrita isn't with me, because she's with you!" 

"With me?" Harry blinked. "Come on, Your Lordship, do you see a single Amrita with me?" he looked around theatrically, as though looking for something. "I can't see any." 

"You know where she is," growled Voldemort, his wand pointed at Harry's heart. 

"Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you." Harry gave his archenemy a cheeky, challenging grin. If it came to that, he'd fight for the security of his thoughts by all possible means … if he had to, he'd ask Linda to keep chattering inside his head so that Voldemort wouldn't hear his thoughts about Amrita's whereabouts… 

However, it didn't come to that. 

"You know something else, too," said Voldemort. "The parchment. Where – is – it?" 

"Parchment?" Harry looked contemplative. "You mean the one I burnt?" 

"Buuuurnt?" hissed the Dark Lord. 

"Yeah. It's in a pretty pile of ashes somewhere in Atlantis. Was it the only means of gaining immortality? Too bad…" 

Voldemort's pallid face suddenly turned red, as red as none of his minions had ever seen it. 

"You little…" began Bellatrix and whipped out her wand at him. 

"Little what?" Harry raised an eyebrow. "…halfblood scum? Your Lord is one too!" Now he changed his voice to a mock baby voice, "Or perhaps little…_baby Potter_? I'm no baby anymore, Bellatrix. The child in me was killed permanently when you killed Sirius. And you didn't even manage to torture me… tsk, tsk, tsk…" 

"I will, now!" she screamed. "_Crucio!_" 

However, Harry just held out his palm and the curse rebounded off it, as though it were a polished mirror. Rebounded, it hit Bellatrix. 

The woman's screams filled the library, and for a second Harry felt some sort of satisfaction, even though it wasn't him torturing her, but her unintentionally torturing herself. 

_"Finite_." Voldemort pointed his wand at his devoted servant's writhing body, and Bellatrix heaved herself into a kneeling position, gasping for breath. 

"That hurt, didn't it?" asked Harry. 

Bellatrix looked up at him with her lips pressed tightly together, but if her look could have killed, Harry would have dropped dead then and there. 

"How did you do that?" asked Voldemort, though he wasn't expecting an answer – the young wizard surely wouldn't give his secret out to him, would he? 

However, a smile spread on Harry's face and he spoke up: "I'm invulnerable, Voldemort. No jinx can harm me, no curse can kill me, no spell whatsoever can hurt me." 

"Impossible…" 

Harry shrugged. "If you think so… but you could see it with your own eyes. All those curses rebounded off me. I take it that the one _Avada Kedavra_ didn't hit me, because if it had, then one of your Death Eaters would be dead now – it would have rebounded on them." 

Voldemort's mouth twitched and his eyes focused on Harry's. 

_Linda, start talking. Talk about anything you want, just make sure you out-shout my thoughts about Amrita's whereabouts._

As you wish. 

Indeed, as Harry had expected, Voldemort was trying Legilimency on him. Voldemort seemed to be such an advanced Legilimens, that he didn't even need to utter the incantation - surely he hadn't cast _Legilimens _on Harry in his fifth year when they were thousands of miles apart, he had just concentrated hard, and he was inside Harry's head… Now he was inside it once again, and what he heard there took him by surprise. 

And now, the weather forecast: tomorrow a warm front comes from the direction of the continent, but it won't cause a radical temperature-rise, just about four or five degrees Celsius. However, the UV-radiation will be unusually high, so good advice to all those who want to go bathing at the seaside: be careful to use suntan lotion! Advertisement section! Here's the Sorcerer Suntan Lotion with Gilderoy Lockhart's recommendation: _You too want to look divine? Want to have fair skin like mine? Skin for which everyone yearns? Then don't allow bad sunburns! _And now, back to the studio… 

"What… what is this?" hissed Voldemort. 

"Er… Wizarding Wireless?" Harry smiled politely. 

"I know that voice…" Voldemort's eyes narrowed. 

"I wouldn't be surprised if you did." Shrugged Harry. _Well done, Lindy!_

My pleasure! I have more slogans in store if you need some. 

_Just no more Gilderoy Lockhart, please!_ thought the young wizard as he scrutinised Voldemort's features. It radiated many different emotions, mostly anger, hatred and surprise. 

"My daughter…" Voldemort said finally. "It was my daughter. You've conspired with my daughter against me, Potter!" 

"Well spotted, your Lordship." Nodded Harry. "See, not even Legilimency can help you now… you cannot harm me in any way. It is you who have to be afraid of me, not the other way around. And, as you might already know: you cannot Disapparate inside the walls of the Circle Headquarters. You're trapped." 

"Trapped?" Bellatrix snorted. "You might be invulnerable, baby Potter, but there's only one of you while there's a dozen of us here!" 

"Yeah… you're terribly outnumbered," replied Harry coolly. 

The Dark Lord took a deep breath, as though trying to calm himself, although Harry was sure that inside he was seething with rage, mad at Amrita for having escaped, mad at Umbridge for spilling the beans to Harry, mad at his own traitorous daughter for siding with his archenemy… and there was something else about him, too. 

Fatigue. 

Yes, that was it. 

Harry was sure that Voldemort was tired. For the first time he seemed old to Harry. He was running out of his powers… 

_Good. He's getting weaker and weaker…_

You've got to force him to duel, Harry. The more he uses of his powers, the quicker he uses them all up. 

_I know, but…_

Harry couldn't even finish his thought, for suddenly five people burst into the room, shooting Stunners at everyone they could reach. 

Three Death Eaters were hit and collapsed, unconscious. 

_Good timing. Now your dad will be forced to fight_, grinned Harry and joined Ginny, Draco, Nausika, Fred and George in showering the Death Eaters with hexes, jinxes and curses. 

"Daddy?" Amrita yawned and rubbed her eyes. Sitting up in Daphne's onetime bed, she pulled the frilly pink covers back and slipped into her shoes. She needed to find the bathroom – as soon as possible. However, she had no idea where it was. She just had to ask her father. "Ginny? Daddy?" 

No one answered her calls. 

She pushed the door of her room open, and suddenly noises caught her ears. Noises that she hadn't heard while in the child's room. 

"Daddy? Is that you? Ginny, where are you? Are you playing hide and seek? Then you're doing it really well. Wormie never manages to hide properly, I always found him! Oh come on, stop hiding! What's going on? Are you out there?" 

After a while she drew the conclusion that her father and Ginny weren't around. But where had they gone? Why had they left her alone? 

Having forgotten about her urge to visit the loo, she ran to the door of the Potter apartment and tried to open it, but it was locked, or charmed not to open. 

Her little heart clenched with fear. What if Daddy had left her for good? And why was she locked in this flat? Surely Daddy hadn't locked her in so that she'd be held here until Grandpa Voldemort came for her to take her away with him again?   
Noooo! Daddy wouldn't be evil enough to let Grandpa capture her again!?! 

Someone spoke up outside: 

"Stunned Death Eaters? Weird." 

"Do you know what this means, Phaedra?" 

"Yeah, Jason, I'm not that slow on the uptake! The Dark Lord's here." 

As the two talkers' footsteps died away Amrita felt she was trembling and some unusually warm feeling filled her lower parts… For the first time since she was three, she wet herself. 

For about a minute she just stood there, quivering in the small puddle, tears flowing down her cheeks. 

"Noooo… that can't be…" She hiccoughed. "He can't be here… he can't find meeee! I'm not going back to him...   
Dadddyyyy, why have you leeeft?" 

Something shook the building, as though some curse had exploded inside it, and it shook the child out her hysterical state. With tears still welling up in her eyes, she knitted her eyebrows, pressed her lips tightly together and ran at the door. 

In the next second she found herself outside the door, on an empty, dimly-lit corridor. 

_Wow. How did I do this?_ she thought. She didn't even know how she could get the idea to 'attack' that poor door – it had been pretty much instinctual. 

Now all she had to do was find the way out of this place, to get as far from Grandpa Voldemort as possible. 

Smoke filled the air in the library, books lay everywhere, shelves shattered, the books' leaves torn out. Spiro was still lying on the floor, though his sister had managed to haul him into a corner. Leto had got her wand back in the turmoil and was occasionally sending a curse at nearby Death Eaters, forming a live shield for her brother. 

By now four Death Eaters were knocked out, along with Jason and George. Macnair was duelling with Nausika, while Rodolphus Lestrange ducked a curse from Fred's wand, tripped over Jason's unconscious body and his wand flew out of his hand. Phaedra, who had been engaged in a fight with a young Death Eater called Jetson, caught Lestrange's wand and while deflecting a hex of Jetson's, she also diverted a curse that Bellatrix had directed at Draco. 

"Hey, thanks!" Draco yelped as he dodged another curse sent at him by Goyle Sr. 

"You're welcome, blond prince!" she quipped. 

"Don't call me…" began Draco, but he couldn't finish, for Goyle aimed another curse at him, growling 'you blood-traitor, how could I ever let you become friends with my little Greg?' 

"Actually, without me little Greg wouldn't have even passed his OWLs!" Draco snapped and flicked his wand, a bunch of snakes lunging at Goyle and turning into ropes as they wound around his body. 

Amidst all curses blurring the air in the library, Harry spotted a dark figure advance towards the door, holding something that looked pretty much like a heavy, old book. The Book of Athena. 

"No you don't," he breathed. 

"What?" asked Ginny, giving a nearby Death Eater a Bat-Bogey Hex. 

Harry just waved and hurried across the room, as quick as he could among zigzagging hexes. 

Catch him, Harry! You can't let him escape! said Linda's excited voice inside of his head. 

_Don't worry, I won't let him escape_, he replied and picked up his pace as soon as he was out of the library. No way would he let Voldemort out his hands, not now when victory was so close, when Voldemort was getting weaker by the second… 

He sent a _Stupefy_ at the Dark Lord even though he expected it not to work, and he was right: the Dark Lord had put a Shield Charm on himself. 

The corridor bent and Harry lost sight of Voldemort. Had he tried to see through the wall, he surely would have been able to, but it would have required some seconds to concentrate, and he had no time to lose – he had to catch up with his archenemy before he could reach the exit from the Circle's Headquarters. 

He turned the corner, and what caught his eyes made an icy hand clench at his heart. 

Voldemort was there, holding a little figure in front of himself, the Book of Athena lying on the floor behind his feet, his wand pointed at the figure's temple. 

"One more move and she dies," he rasped. 

"If she dies, then where will you get more blood-supplies from, eh? Don't count on me, for I'm not going to give you a single droplet of my blood," replied Harry, trying to sound as calm as possible, though inside he was trembling with fear. 

Amrita's huge green eyes were widened with horror; she didn't dare move and barely even dared breath. 

"I've found another source of blood-replenishment," hissed Voldemort with a malicious grin on his face. "Actually I only accomplished the ritual an hour ago… on your younger daughter." 

"On my… oh!" Harry's eyes widened as he realised that his opponent was talking about Dora. For a second it flashed through his mind to thank Draco for knocking up his wife. Without Malfoy, Voldemort wouldn't have been under the delusion that he'd gained powers for several more weeks. 

Harry had a good idea what Voldemort must have had in mind when he'd fled from the library: he must have been planning to leave the Circle Headquarters, then force people at random to question the Book of Athena about Amrita's whereabouts, as he had already asked his question. Voldemort must have been firm in the belief that he'd be able to find his granddaughter eventually, and his energy-supplies would be enough until he found her… He seemed to think he still had time, still had weeks to find her… 

However, Harry knew that he didn't. He knew it, and this feeling should have given him heart… yet it didn't, for Voldemort was keeping the child - along with her father – in check. Why had Amrita left the Potter apartment? – Harry groaned inwardly. Had she remained there, then Voldemort wouldn't have found out that she was around and… 

No use crying over spilt milk, Linda spoke up inside his head, and Harry took a deep breath, steeling himself. He knew that if he didn't want his daughter to be harmed, then he'd have to let Voldemort escape with the child… at least that's what he'd seen the evildoers do in action movies: just grab the girl, stick a gun to her temple and demand the police to let you free, or you're going to kill your hostage. Even Voldemort, who hadn't seen a single Muggle movie, hoped that Potter would be sensible enough to let them go. 

Harry, however, was of a different opinion. This was his chance to make sure Voldemort would lose his blood-supplies forever; this was his chance to vanquish the Dark Lord… But he was insecure. 

_Now what?_ he thought. 

Point your wand at her, Harry, and say… 

_Avada Kedavra?_ he asked in a crestfallen voice. 

No. There's another curse for the purpose… and it's the most human of all. She won't feel a thing. 

_Do you realise you're egging me on to kill our daughter?_

Just do it, Harry. Repeat the following words… 

Harry raised his wand with a slightly trembling hand. His eyes locked with Amrita's and he saw one single tear glint in her right eye. 

Linda's voice inside his head continued: …fair Helios, hear my cry, let this little sunshine die! 

Harry opened his mouth, but he felt it had gone as dry as a parchment and he wasn't able to produce any sort of voice. 

Something that Linda had told him long ago came to his mind: 'My little angel would be much happier here with us than with my father.' Yes… Amrita would definitely be happier in Elysium than here… and Voldemort would be vanquished… 

Harry looked into his daughter's eyes for one more time and saw that the single tear had found its way down her cheek… 

"Afraid, aren't you, Harry?" taunted Voldemort, firm in the belief that Harry was just threatening him by pointing his wand at the child. 

Harry didn't reply, didn't even look at him. "_Fair Helios_…" he muttered, his words indistinguishable for Voldemort, "…_hear my cry…"_

Amrita bit into her lower lip and was shaking so madly that Voldemort had hard business holding her in place.   
"_…let this little sunshine… die._" 

Voldemort, who had been gripping Amrita's left shoulder, now felt it simply slip out of his hand, as the child collapsed. Next thing he knew, his granddaughter was lying in front of his feet without a single sign of life. 

**A/N2**: that was evil, wasn't it? Don't hold back, curses are welcome Agi has already created a shield by _Protego_ around herself. 

_TrixieFirecracker_: it was mentioned in an earlier chapter that Rätsel means Riddle in German. Linda grew up in Germany and was called Linda Rätsel, thus her daughter is called Amrita Rätsel. It has nothing to do with rats. Yup, D/P end up together, but don't expect huge romantic scenes with them, because that just wouldn't fit. I can't imagine Draco going mushy. 

_Jenni:_ Dora is Draco's daughter but besides Harry, Phaedra and Ginny no one else knows that - everyone thinks she's Harry's child. 

_kraeg001:_ yup, he isn't James Bond, I know. I don't know where this obsession of mine comes from shrugs. I just love making the main male character of my fics get to shag several girls. But I decided to hold back in my next fic (the Artemis Fowl one) - Artemis won't shag a single girl in it, that's a promise! 

_Imalil2sarcastic_: yes, Harry has two daughters (Amrita and Daffy) and a boy who hasn't been named yet. 

_gpotter_: yes, usually I write out the whole fic before I start posting. I made a bit of exception with this one though - I started to post it when about 3/4 of the fic was written. 

_C-chan1:_ how could I forget the fun-tastic innuendo list? :DDD I read several HP characters discover ffn story before and got bored of them. There are way too many of them and they are very clichéish. Of course the one you mentioned might be good, but I wouldn't try reading it. I've had enough of random/silly fics, nowadays I'm rather for more serious ones. The problem is that nowadays I rather read Artemis fics than HP ones, but in the AF fandom you can barely find serious fics, 90% of the fics there are completely stupid with absolutely no plot sighs If I want a good AF fic, I have to write it myself... ;) I only found one funny but still good Artemis fic, in case you'd like to read it, it's 'The mud boy and the elf' by Ms. Halley. Unfinished, but still worth reading, it made me rotfl. No, I haven't seen Nightmare. Don't like horror at all. That's why I put all genres into my fics BUT horror. Hey, that Tom fic you mentioned sounds interesting. Who wrote it and what's the title? I might try to read it. Unless it is a parody fic. If it's any serious, then I'll give it a try. Yes, I knew about that Italian food producer company called Agivega. I think they stole my name ;) ;) ;) Glad you like my Butler :D I don't like the Harry-abuse fics either. They are completely unbeliavable. I agree with you: the Dursleys wouldn't hit him. I read Celebony's Recnac transfaerso which is a cool fic, but even in there I found the Harry-abuse far-fetched. 

_blaubaerin_: I've seen PotC in Hungarian too, but it sucked. It's only good in English. 

_kitkat:_ yes, everyone will find out about everything :) 

H_ouou Kazoku-Kaga_: no, no adverse effect, but Dora's blood won't help either. 

_katie_: no, no adverse effect of Dora's blood. Dunno what I'd ask of the Book of Athena... perhaps how to become a world-famous writer like JKR ;) ;) ;) Or how to convince the professors at the university to accept my appeal (I failed my bloody entrace exam by one single point and I appealed - though I don't see much of a chance that they'll still let me in :( 

_hypnotic-babe_: thanks so much, glad you like my arts :D Yes, I would like to write a book of my own, but for the time being I don't have an idea for one. But one day I will, I surely will :))) And until then I'll keep writing fanfics. Three chapters left. 

_EowynDernhelm_: please read my answer to TrixieFirecracker. Only three chapters left. 

_sweet775_: I think Agace sounds okay, but Yuri doesn't. Then again, for the Russians Yuri is an okay name, every fifth Russian boy is a Yuri ;) 

_BrownPryde_: beams happily - my fic actually taught you something. I'm proud :D However, the oracle was in Delphi, not Delos (Delos is an island). 

_carameLisSa_: only three chapters left. And Phaedra was out in the streets, looking for Spiro (just like the rest of the Circle). 

_DarkFlower2113_: yes, I'm definitely proud of you :) I hope you'll like Arty. And if not, then at least you'll like my fic (I have a friend who isn't that taken by the books but I've sent her the few ready chapters of my fic for proof-reading and she likes it better than the original ;) 

_Swanny:_ I don't know which one of them the quote belongs to... a friend of mine sent me that quote. I think it rather must be Percy Shelley, though. No, you didn't manage to guess things. I've started to read D'Arvit Tyranny's fic (Memory files). It looks good so far. And if you'd like to read two other good ones, then check out _Birds of a feather _by Blue Yeti and _Idiot savant _by Nyghtvision. And if you're not opposed to Artemis/Holly romances, then read _Fowl Feelings_ by Cosmo-the-bard (I hope you are NOT opposed to A/H, for my fic will be slightly A/H too...) 

_dementorchic_: only three chapters left :( 

_maureen_: I forgot to read your fic's summary. Stupid me. Well, this cliff was worse than the last one, right? wicked grin 

_Inken_: Harry wasn't sure he had to sacrifice Amrita (he only feared that he would), but now he didn't have a chance. He couldn't kill Voldie because Voldie held Amrita in front of himself, he could only kill the girl. 

_Ally of Pirate's Swoop_: I'm still writing my Artemis fic, and I will only start to upload it when it's ready. However, if you'd like to read some good AF fics, then check out the three I mentioned to Swanny (slightly above you). 

_Elfy19_: I haven't yet revealed what sort of power Harry got in the underworld. You'll find out in the next chapter. Nausika is pronounced as 'Naaooseekah'. Harry knows already that Wormie was nice to Amrita. 

_Elizabeth Darcy_: thanks for the correction, I'll change it and checkmated and phoenixsong will get 'arse' instead of 'ass' ;) 

_AlKatraZ_: you were right, this WASN'T pretty. 

_Mistri, Tonks' Admirer:_ read my answer to TrixieFirecracker. Harry is just the type of guy who feels guilty about everything shrugs 

_Sohalia_: yes, I think that by the end of the fic, everyone will know everything (at least everything they NEED to know ;) 

_TigHan:_ yup, your suspicion had been right, I did something really nasty in this chapter... 

_Snuffles007_: are you the same Snuffles007 who used to review this fic on checkmated? Just wondering... 

_Any last requests?_: yes, anything is possible. Glad you thought of Dan/Myrtle in TGEEF, because that's what I had in mind when writing that 'Harry thinks about shagging a ghost' part ;) 

_JiNglebellz_: Draco will only find out about the baby in chapter 30. 

_Written in Stars_: I know I should post more, but like it or not, I'm going to space out the remaining chapters quite a bit. You'll get one more chapter before the 23rd May, then I'll be away and won't update till the 3rd of 4th May. Sorry, bear with me... 

_midori_: don't worry, I'm fine. Thanks for asking, though. Please, read my answer to Written in Stars (right above you). 

Also thanks to: _Sarahamanda, Wood's secret lover, Mery, rebkos, Chelsea of the Moor, bambooanime, Requiem to a Dream, Natalia, torifire126, BurningIce22, Abluebird225, iNiGmA, Katrina Littlebird, moonypadfoot, Wizzabee, Silvercrystal77, kneh13, Paige, Snuffles208, Hannah, Romina, goldenstar555, sophianwin, Hues of Blue, hi-voltage 57, sugareeSWEET-xoxo, tez, Mr Strawberry, The Flying Moose_


	29. And Either Must Die at the Hand of the O...

**A/N: IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ -** don't expect any updates before the 3rd of 4th June, because I'll be away. Guess where? **GREECE! **Agi's visiting Athens (I'll say hello to Nikias, Spiro and Nausika if I see them in Falaf Alley), Delphi (what sort of prediction should I ask from Pythia?) and various places all over Greece - such as Corinth, the Saron-islands, Thessaloniki, Thermopylai (sp?), Epidauros and the Meteroa monastery. If everything goes well, I'll even meet my Greek friend linagranger in Athens! Wish me a nice, accident-free journey! I'll be posting photos of Greece into my yahoogroup after I return. 

And don't worry, should anything happen to me on the journey, you'll still get the remaining two chapters, because my friend Michael has them and he'll upload them if I can't. But let's hope that it will be me posting the last two chappies though (especially because the two chapters I sent to Michael are unedited and I'd like to upload them as 'perfect' chapters:) 

I would like to ask you all not to send me emails between the 22nd May and the 1st June, because 1. I won't be around to answer them, 2. my inbox will flood. Thank you for your understanding! 

Also, I might mention Ginny as 'Virginia' in the future, although we already know from JKR's site that her real name is Ginevra. I won't change Virginia in my fic, so officially it's "AU" from this point of view now ;)   
  
  


**Chapter 29******

**And either must die at the hand of the other**   
  
_"The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live."_   
(Joan Borysenko)   


Voldemort couldn't believe his eyes: Amrita was sprawled on the floor; her chest was no longer rising and falling, and her red-gold locks fell into her chalk-white face, hiding her closed eyes like some curly curtain. 

"What… what have you done?" he hissed, his snake-like red eyes meeting Harry's haunted green ones. 

Slowly, as though he had only now realised what he'd done, Harry lowered his wand. "I've robbed you of the last blood-supply, Voldemort. Her blood only worked for you as long as she was alive." 

"But she wasn't the last!" the Dark Lord snapped. "You're still here!" 

"I'm invulnerable, Voldemort," Harry reminded his opponent. "You can't get any blood from me, for my skin can't be cut." 

"Then… then there's your baby daughter!" said the Dark Lord hastily, as though trying to prove to Harry that he still had leverage. 

The young wizard just shook his head. "The baby isn't mine." 

Voldemort's eyes widened. "Not… not yours?" 

"Not mine. If you took her blood, then you took the wrong blood… her blood hasn't restored your powers. It never will." 

Harry thought he saw a flash of fear run through the Dark Lord's face. Oh yes… Voldemort was in his hands now. He only had to wait and the greatest dark wizard of the century would be worse than a common Muggle. 

"You're… you're bluffing for sure!" stammered Voldemort. "You're just trying to lie to me, to threaten me, but I swear you won't succeed, Potter!" 

Harry took a deep sigh and looked directly into the Dark Lord's eyes, then in a small, but serious voice he said: "I swear on the love I felt and still feel for my daughter that I told you the truth, Voldemort." 

"No… that can't be… that can't!" The wand in Voldemort's hand trembled as much as his whole body shook. His knees were going weak… 

Suddenly there was a gasp from behind. Harry didn't need to turn around to see who it was: Wormtail. 

"A… Amrita?" The small Death Eater said and stepped closer, his bulging eyes fixed on the prone form of the little girl. 

"Wormie's little angel… wake up!" he said in a beseeching voice. However, Amrita didn't reply. "She's… she's not…?" He looked questioningly at Harry, who felt as though he'd been stabbed by a lance through the heart. The desperate pain on Pettigrew's face made it all sink in… After he'd uttered the Helios spell, he had only thought of having rid Voldemort of his chance to replenish his powers, this way having saved the world as well… Now it sank in that he'd actually murdered his own daughter for it. Not that it hadn't been on his mind for months, not that he hadn't been sort of planning to do this… it was just that knowing what one _should do_ and really _doing it_ were two wholly different things. 

Harry hung his head, and Wormtail let out an almighty 'NOOOOOOOO!', dropping to his knees and gathering the child's lifeless body into his arms. 

Harry didn't know whether it had been Wormtail's scream that lured many of the combatants out of the library, but in the next instant curses streaked over Harry's shoulder and Voldemort could barely deflect them. Harry just couldn't move, his eyes were still fixed on his dead daughter and Peter Pettigrew, who was sobbing into the little girl's curly hair, holding her carefully in his arms as though she were still alive. With his 360 degrees vision, Harry saw that it had been Ginny and Nausika who'd sent those curses at Voldemort, only to be attacked by the Lestrange couple; however the focus of his attention never left Amrita and Wormtail. For the first time in his life he felt sorry for Pettigrew. Sorry because it had long been obvious to him that Pettigrew loved this child as though she were his own. Harry didn't even try to persuade himself that he, as Amrita's father, loved her more than Wormtail did – truth was that he didn't know Amrita enough for that. Pettigrew, on the other hand, had known the child ever since she was born… his pain must have been even greater than Harry's. 

What are you waiting for? Linda's voice shook him out of his reverie. Everyone's fighting, Harry! Come on, curse Father! Make him at least try to retaliate! 

You're right, he thought, and sent a Full Body Bind jinx at Voldemort, expecting him to try and deflect it easily. Voldemort, who was busy enough defending himself from Fred's curse-shower, needed a great deal of effort to deflect Harry's jinx at the same time. As he did it, their eyes locked for a millisecond, and Harry again saw fear in those red snake-eyes. 

He already knows what you're playing at remarked Linda.__

_It doesn't matter that he knows_, replied Harry and this time aimed a _Tarantallegra_ at the Dark Lord. _He can no longer do anything against it…_

True she agreed as Voldemort deflected the hex. 

Nearby Ginny managed to Stun Rodolphus Lestrange who hit the floor and Nausika immediately summoned his wand. Bellatrix tried to shout _Enervate_ at her husband, but all she managed to utter was the first syllable, for Fred yelled _Silencio_ at her. After Rodolphus lost consciousness, Nausika sent a scorching curse at the Dark Lord, but Voldemort ducked and it hit one of his young Death Eaters whose robes caught fire. If Harry hadn't put an Extinguishing Charm on him out of the goodness of his heart, he would have suffered serious burns. Just a second after putting out the fire, Harry bound the young Death Eater with magical ropes. 

You're too merciful, Harry Linda voiced her opinion.__

_He's way too young to die_, replied Harry bitterly. _Young and deceived. Everyone deserves a second chance._

Father doesn't__

_True, he doesn't_. 

His eyes shifted to Peter Pettigrew, and he was surprised to see that Peter had stopped crying. Actually, he was eyeing the Dark Lord in a rather peculiar way… there was some sort of madness in his watery little eyes… Harry couldn't help but gape at him as he suddenly released Amrita's body, and eyes gleaming with fury, he pointed his wand at Voldemort. 

At first Voldemort didn't even notice Wormtail, for he was too occupied with deflecting curses from various Circle members and Weasleys, but as Wormtail's words 'YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!' boomed across the corridor, he was forced to look at his most pathetic servant… only this servant didn't look a bit pathetic now. He looked dangerous. Crazy. And most of all: hate-filled. 

Before Voldemort could at all comprehend the mixture of emotions on Peter's face, he was hit by a blast from Peter's wand and knocked against the wall of the corridor. Had he been his old self, he would easily have defended himself, but… he wasn't nearly as strong, nearly as quick… he felt tired. 

However, he still had enough strength to punish his servant for turning against him… Before he knew what hit him, Wormtail fell backwards and landed unconscious on top of Amrita's body. 

Panting, Voldemort leant against the wall. This last curse had drained him. He glanced in the direction of the entrance – perhaps there was still a way to escape, if only he could reach that front door somehow… 

At that moment the front door opened to let seven people in: four of them were old Circle members named Gaia, Pasiphae, Nessus and Iphicles, followed by the new members: the three sirens. 

Spotting the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, they immediately shot Stunners and various curses at them, and Voldemort needed all his energies to defend himself, knowing well enough what would happen if he didn't manage to flee soon. Now that seven members of the Circle had returned and joined the fight on the Light Side, the Death Eaters – only a few of whom were not yet stunned or disabled - were outnumbered. A young Death Eater got knocked out by a curse from Fred, while Macnair was dazedly staggering around with an enamoured expression on his face. So was Goyle, his eyes dreamy and his hands pressed over his chest, heaving sighs. The latter was due to the fact that Nymph, Nympha and Nympho started singing. However, none of the male Circle members fell under the effect of their song, for Nessus and Iphicles had cast deafening charms on themselves. Poor Fred, however, got the full blast of the beautiful creatures' magic and at the moment would have jumped into a well if any of the three sisters had asked him to. Harry, noticing that his friend was in trouble, cast a sobering charm on him that worked pretty well, given that Fred's state was very close to being drunk, he was only drunk with love, not alcohol. 

"Thanks, mate." Fred gave him the thumbs-up. The effect of Harry's sobering charm was expected to last for at least an hour, so he was in no danger of getting enchanted by the sirens for a while. 

With his special vision that allowed him to see through walls, Harry checked the library to see three Death Eaters still battling with Draco, Phaedra and George (the latter had obviously regained consciousness), while Jason was still knocked out. Leto seemed to be holding Spiro in her arms, and though Spiro looked horrible, he was definitely alive.   
  
  


For Voldemort everything seemed to have become a blur. The path to the entrance was blocked by several combatants, and he couldn't blast his way through them, for he didn't have enough powers left for it. For a second it flashed through his mind that he should try and Apparate to the entrance - perhaps Apparating inside the Headquarters was possible, just in and out Apparating was impossible – he didn't know. With all his might he tried to concentrate on Apparating to the front door, but realised that even if it were possible, he wouldn't have been able to. He was weak. Weaker than he had ever felt, save for his body-less state so many years ago… However, there was a great difference between these two weaknesses: when he'd lost his body, he hadn't fully lost his powers, he still could possess animals and even people, but now he had a body… but barely any powers left. 

Leaning against the wall to support his weight, he slowly slid down to the ground. A Latin phrase came to his mind: 'sic transit gloria mundi'. _Thus the world's glory passes by._ So did _his_ glory pass by… the greatest Dark wizard of the century - reduced to a pathetic, powerless Muggle. No, not even a Mudblood, not even a Squib. A Muggle. The sort of person whom he had hated and despised – a person with no magic powers. A person like his own detested father. 

With glassy eyes he looked at the combatants, who seemed to have stopped fighting – were they all gaping at him? – he wondered. _What are you looking at? _he thought. _The pathetic body of a dying animal?___

_Why?_ – another voice in his head asked. _Are you any more than a pathetic animal now?___

_No… I'm not.___

_Look at the people around! Don't they look happy?___

_Oh, yes, they do. I'm defeated. I'm lost. The Potter boy seems to be the only one here who knows what's happening to me… the others are just gaping stupidly. Even Bellatrix. Hey, Bella, what sort of Death Eater mentality is this? Never give up, never surrender!___

_Give it up, not even you can fight anymore, how are you expecting them to fight then? You've been their idol, Voldemort!___

_Voldemort? Am I STILL Voldemort?___

_Look at that red-haired girl. She's looking at you funnily. She's seeing you as… Tom.___

_Is she?___

_Just look at her face! What do you see there? Disgust. Hate. And pity. Isn't she the one who was writing in your diary? Didn't Lucius say she was a Weasley? All Weasleys have red hair…___

_And what if she is that girl?_ snapped Voldemort to himself. 

D_oesn't the name Weasley ring a bell?_ the voice inside his head got tempting, enticing. _She's Potter's little sweetheart. The one with whom you lured him into the trap six years ago! He loves her…___

_She married the Malfoy boy! And Potter seems to have married some Greek witch!___

_They still love each other…_ the voice whispered.__

_And?___

_You still have a bit of power, Tom! You almost killed her in the Chamber of Secrets… then Potter saved her, though he never even loved her back then. Now he loves her… He made this wreck of you, remember! You want to retaliate!_

Voldemort's eyes narrowed, and the wand still clutched in his hand shifted a bit… _Yes, I still have enough power for that… for one – last - spell…_   
  
  


A devilish smirk appeared on the Dark Lord's face, and Harry instinctively knew that he was about to do something. With his 360 degrees vision he could see several things happening at the same time if he concentrated. Most Death Eaters were lying on the floor, stunned or disabled, Bellatrix was one of the few still upright, her eyes fixed on her master's face, her features revealing horror at what she was seeing. A bit to the right Nausika was panting, pressing her right hand over her heart. Fred, who had recently received a Jelly Leg Jinx from one of the Death Eaters, was supported by Nymph and Nympho, and Ginny was nursing a bleeding nose several feet away from Harry. Voldemort's wand stirred, a move barely noticeable to the naked eye, but thanks to his special vision, it didn't escape Harry's attention. It happened in the blink of an eye: Voldemort shouted _Avada Kedavra_ at Ginny, and at the same time Harry shouted _Tempus Glacietur!_

The green flash of lightning froze in midair between Voldemort's wand and Ginny's body – so did everything and everyone else. Harry heaved a huge sigh: if he hadn't been quick enough to freeze time, Ginny would be dead now. He wouldn't have had time to jump in front of her to defend her with his invulnerable body, for she was too far from him for that. 

With a wave of his wand he Vanished the green lightning, and with a second wave at Voldemort he unfroze his archenemy. 

"Clever move," rasped Voldemort. "One of my favourite charms, Time Freezing." 

"I know it is," replied Harry. "You used it pretty well on Adela Springfield. She told me about it." 

"I take you must have visited the Underworld, Potter," replied Voldemort and with all his remaining strength he heaved himself into a standing position. Even though he felt he'd lost the last vestige of magical powers, he was still Lord Voldemort, and a lord will never surrender to the enemy or crouch at his feet… no, he'd rather face his destiny with his head held proudly up in the air. Dignity was something he'd never lose… Never. 

"Yes, I have," replied Harry. "I could tell you lots of interesting things about that place… for example about Tartarus. You'd fit in there wonderfully. You could even play Quidditch for Tartarus…" 

Voldemort's eyes narrowed. "Don't mock me, Potter. I might not be as powerful as I used to be, but I swear that if I end up there, I'll make the afterlife of your precious family an eternal hell!" 

"Now I am terribly frightened." Harry made a grimace. "But don't count on that, Voldemort. You'll never have a chance to hurt my late loved ones." 

"Why not, if I may ask?" 

"Because I'm not going to kill you." 

"Why not? The prophecy… it said you'd vanquish me. Here, I'm defenceless! Kill me! End it, Potter!" 

"Oh… his Lordship doesn't want to live with the knowledge that he's no better than a common Muggle now?" Harry raised an eyebrow at his opponent. "Are you afraid of Azkaban? Perhaps you wouldn't even be put in there – it's a prison for wizards, after all, and you… you're just a M – U – G – G – L – E." 

"I would have killed your little lover if you hadn't stopped me! So what's your problem, Potter?" hissed the Dark Lord. "You killed your own child in cold blood, then why not _me_?" 

"Because I'd only do you a favour if I did," said Harry, playfully twirling his wand in his right hand. "I won't be that merciful. You had no mercy on my parents, nor for your own family. You had no mercy on Cedric. You had no mercy on Dumbledore. Not even on the woman you once claimed to love. You had no mercy on your own granddaughter. Why should I have mercy on you?" 

Voldemort paled more and more by the second. "Didn't… didn't the prophecy say you'd kill me?" 

"It said the following: _and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives,_" Harry recited Trelawney's words to his enemy. 

"See? It says that you'll kill me or I'll kill you!" said Voldemort in an almost beseeching voice. "I can't kill you, Harry. So fulfil the prophecy. Kill me." 

"You know, Voldemort, Dumbledore was the wisest person I've ever known," replied the young wizard calmly. "I've learnt many things from him, and one of those things was to look beyond the meaning of words, for words can deceive you. They can be interpreted in many ways… and didn't he tell you in the Ministry of Magic that there were things worse than death? Didn't he?" 

"What… what do you mean by that?" hissed the Dark Lord, although he already knew what Harry meant, and what Dumbledore had meant so many years ago. Indeed, there were things worse than death. Voldemort had never considered that there could be something worse than ceasing to exist… but living in shame was worse than that. Much, much worse. 

"I don't need to explain that, do I?" whispered Harry. "No… I see it in your eyes. You understand it. You know it. You, who have always thirsted after being immortal, have finally recognised that living isn't the most important thing. It's how you live. Powerful, being admired and feared… that's how you lived, but for you it was never enough. You wanted to live forever. Your wish will be granted." 

"What?" Voldemort's eyes widened. 

Instead of replying, Harry raised his right hand and pointed his index finger at him. "There's one part of the prophecy you haven't heard yet, Tom. It says _he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…_ I have a power like this." 

"Wait, what…?" stammered the Dark Lord, but he couldn't finish his sentence, for Harry's finger tip emitted a bluish white beam that hit him in his midsection, knocking the wind out of him. He doubled up and felt nauseated, white-bluish sparks criss-crossing all around him… then it ended and he slumped to the floor. 

An explosion came from the library, but he didn't notice – his ears were ringing and his vision was blurred. 

Six figures emerged from the library, coughing, their faces and hair covered with soot. For a second Harry felt surprised, and then he noted that the range of the Time Freezing Charm hadn't reached as far as the library, so no one in there froze in time.   
His whole body shaking madly, Voldemort stood up as the six figures got closer. 

Spiro was supported by Leto, Jason by George, and, most surprisingly, Phaedra and Draco were supporting each other.   
When they spotted the frozen people and Harry, facing none other than Voldemort, they all whipped their wands at the Dark Lord, believing Harry to be in serious trouble. 

Harry, however, held out his hand to stop them. 

"Don't. He's harmless." 

"Harmless?" gasped Draco, his eyes radiating 'not even you can be this thick, Potter!'. 

"As I said: harmless," repeated Harry. 

Draco opened his mouth to say something rude, but Phaedra kicked him in the shin. Draco's face reddened as he bit into his tongue and shot the woman a very nasty glance, but she didn't notice it, for her eyes were fixed upon Voldemort. 

However for some reason, Voldemort didn't look like a Dark Lord was supposed to look like. He was leaning against the wall, his breathing shallow and his face revealing fatigue. 

"Harry, mate, what do you mean…?" began George, but, to everyone's surprise Voldemort cut in, his eyes fixed on George's face: 

"You, boy, I almost killed your father eight years ago!" Then he looked at Draco. "I drew your whole family into my service and ruined their lives… you never really had a family, did you?" He squinted at the Papafotius, addressing Leto: "I wanted to torture your brother to death!" Finally his glance shifted to Phaedra: "And I used your precious little baby for the blood-ritual!" 

"What?" hissed Phaedra, but Harry waved to her to calm down. 

"It's nothing, Phaedra. Dora is fine." 

"But… what sort of blood ritual…?" The young mother clang to this one detail, worry for her daughter filling her heart. 

"He thought Dora was mine," replied Harry. "Mine, thus her blood was suitable, or at least partly suitable for replenishing his magical powers." 

The others looked at him with confused expressions. "Voldemort here once used my blood to regain his body, but he became addicted to it. Addicted, so that he had to get more and more of it to keep going… to keep his magical powers. He used my daughter…" He gulped and tried not to look at the lifeless form of Amrita. "To get blood-supplies." 

"You mean Daffy?" Phaedra frowned. She hadn't yet noticed the dead child. 

"No." Harry shook his head, and screwed up all his courage to look at the tiny body on the floor, Wormtail's stunned form half-covering it. "My other daughter. One that I never… never mentioned to you." 

Phaedra didn't know what to say, how to react – her husband had another daughter… and by the look of her, this girl must have been born at least two years before their Daphne… And… by the look of her, she wasn't merely frozen in time, like the others. She looked… "Dead…?" 

Harry hung his head. "Yes, Phaedra, dead." 

"He killed her?" George pointed at Voldemort. 

"No," whispered Harry. "I did." 

Even the buzzing of a fly could have been heard in the silence that issued now. Draco, Phaedra, George, Jason and both Papafotius were gaping at the young wizard as though he had suddenly sprouted two additional heads. This was… impossible. They couldn't believe their ears, they must have heard wrong! Harry… Harry Potter, killing his own child? 

It was Phaedra who first regained her voice. "W…why?" 

"Because of him." Harry gave Voldemort a look that suggested he regarded the Dark Lord as a particularly disgusting piece of dirt. "Had I… had I not killed her… _he_ might have managed to flee with her… and he would have got another dose of her blood… and then another… he would have continued using her… she deserved a better life than that… and he deserved a worse life than that. Now he got it. He's run out of his magical powers… and he no longer can replenish them." 

All six of them stared at Voldemort, breathless. 

"You mean that… he no longer has… any powers?" George stammered, as though he didn't believe the words he was uttering. 

"Yeah." 

"See? I'm harmless," hissed Voldemort. "I no longer can hurt any of you… but don't forget that I've hurt your families, I've hurt you, and I would have continued hurting you all if I had had the chance!" 

"Honestly, Tom, what are you playing at?" Draco folded his arms. As he saw the Dark Lord's mouth twitch, he added: "Oh, already forgotten your old name, haven't you?" 

"You filthy little blood-traitor, you!" growled Voldemort. "You abomination of the name of pure-blood wizard! You…" 

"You ask what he's playing at?" interjected Harry. "It's obvious, isn't it? He wants to provoke you to kill him. But it's no use." 

"Of course it's no use." Shrugged young Malfoy. "I wouldn't dirty my hands with killing him, would I? It isn't worth the trouble. He can't harm anyone, after all." 

Phaedra nodded her agreement. 

Voldemort's eyes widened with fear. Surely these people, these people whom he hadn't caused anything but pain and suffering, weren't going to leave him alive? No… no, no, noooo! He couldn't live without his powers! He couldn't live like a common Muggle! He couldn't live like the scum that he'd always detested! He couldn't live like his damned father!!! 

"Kill me… I sent Nagini after your father, Weasley! His guts were hanging out, blood flooding everything… I tried to kill him! Then you… one of my Death Eaters almost killed you at Potter's memorial! I…" 

However, George gave him a defiant look and shook his head. 

Desperately, Voldemort turned to Leto. "I tortured your brother! I would have gladly seen him die! Is this nothing for you, girl?" 

Hugging Spiro to herself, Leto pursed her lips. "He's alive, and all I can say is that I'm sorry for you." 

"Sorry?" shouted the Dark Lord. "No one's entitled to feel sorry for me!!!" his nervous eyes shifted to Phaedra. "You hear me, girl? I used your baby, and I would have used her again and again, I would have spilt her blood to satisfy my needs!" 

Phaedra regarded him with narrowed eyes, then spat at the floor. 

In his last desperation Voldemort turned to Harry. 

"And you? You, Harry? I killed your father! Then I killed your mother! I would have killed you, too if I had managed to! I ruined your life, Harry! I gave you nightmares for years, then I used your as a mere stud to breed on my daughter! I blackmailed you, I made you flee with your shame, I mistreated your precious little daughter! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, HARRY? KILL ME!" 

"I wouldn't kill you even if I could," young Potter said, his emerald green eyes meeting Voldemort's reddish-grey ones. The Dark Lord's eyes no longer seemed ruby-red… they had lost their brilliance and were now closer to grey. "But I can't. Neither can they," he gestured at the others. "Your greatest wish has been granted. You're immortal, Voldemort." 

"W…what?" whispered the Dark Lord, clutching at the wall for support, for he felt he'd die on the spot. Then again, Potter was saying he couldn't die… "You're… you're joking, Harry?" 

"I can assure you I'm not. While I was in the Underworld, I was contemplating how to vanquish you… and I came to realise that killing you was not the right option. You needed to be punished. You needed to suffer… to expiate for all the evil you've done, for all the lives you've extinguished, for all the misery you put so many families into… I decided I'd be merciless. I killed my own daughter in cold blood…" His eyes narrowed but never left Voldemort's face. "My daughter who I loved. So why would I be merciful to you, who I hate? Linda helped me realise that what you most loved… actually, the _only _thing you ever loved, was power. So I decided to take it from you. I sacrificed my child to take it from you. And then, with the power I got from Hades himself, I made you immortal." His mouth tucked into a smirk – a satisfied, malicious, almost delighted smirk.   
"Sybill Trelawney was right, after all. You died at my hand, Voldemort; for the eternal life awaiting you will be worse than death… it will be no life at all. You're practically dead. I couldn't have killed you more." 

"You're… you're lying!" rasped the Dark Lord. "This can't be… can't be true!" 

Instead of replying, Harry pointed his wand at him: "_Avada Kedavra!"_

The green flash of lighting hit Voldemort, his body seemed to be engulfed in it for some seconds, tremors were running through it and he collapsed, but very noticeably continued breathing. With an ashen face he looked up at Harry – his expression revealed that he finally understood. 

His greatest dream had come true: he was immortal.__

_Damn Harry Potter…_

"Harry?" Phaedra was the first to speak, and her voice was wavering, "Is he… is he really…?" 

"You've just seen it," her husband replied. "He's defeated. He's lost his powers, and now he's in our power. The Great Lord Voldemort is nothing more than a Muggle at the mercy of wizards. Doesn't it ring a bell, Tom?" he stared down at the cowering ex-wizard. "Didn't you look down at Muggles? You did. Didn't you torture them, kill them? You did. Did you show any kind of mercy to them? Oh no, you didn't. It's payback time, Tom." 

"What do you want to do with him?" asked Draco. 

"Me? Nothing," said Harry calmly. "We're going to bring him before the International Magical Court of Justice. They'll decide about his fate. But if they'll accept some advice from me, then I have an idea what to do with him." 

Phaedra opened her mouth to ask 'what', but at that second the frozen people suddenly 'melted' – the Time Freezing Charm's effect had expired. 

All of the unfrozen witches and wizards stared at the fallen Voldemort, unable to move – not because they were still frozen, but because the sight shocked them. Voldemort had already been crouching when they had been frozen, but then he still seemed to have some strength to fight. Now, however, he seemed lost. Vanquished. 

Bellatrix pushed her way through the crowd and dropped to her knees next to Voldemort. 

"Master! Master, speak to me!" 

"Go away, Bella!" growled Voldemort. 

"But… Master!" 

"I said GO AWAY!" 

Mrs Lestrange drew back a bit, her gaunt face radiating horror. "But…" 

"Don't you see, Bella?" hissed the onetime Dark Lord, "Don't you see what I've become? I've become one of those… the filthy… the scum…" 

"Oh, my Lord!" Her eyes filled with tears. "What have they done to you?" 

Voldemort pressed his lips tightly together and looked away, not wanting – or not daring – to meet her eyes. This woman had always idolised him, he had been her master, her lord, her god… and now he was no one. He was one of those whom he'd hated and despised. "Save your skin, Bella," he whispered to her. "Go. You can't help me." 

Bellatrix's crouching body shuddered with suppressed sobs. "I won't leave you, Master…" 

"Don't be a fool, Bella! You don't want to serve a Muggle, do you?" 

"A… M…Muggle?" stammered the female Death Eater. 

Voldemort nodded. "I'm powerless, Bella…" He lifted his face to look at Harry, "Potter won." 

"He… he did this to you?" gulped the woman, her hand gripping her wand so tightly with nervousness that it almost snapped. 

"One of us had to win… he did. It's over, Bella." 

Bellatrix's eyes narrowed and she blinked back her tears. Her face revealed pain, shock, hate, blood-thirst, madness… and love. Love for her Master. This love had been deep yet suppressed, but now it threatened to burst out of her… it made her forget about everything, all she saw was her Master – her helpless Master, her humiliated Master… She had been a strong woman, strong enough to keep her sanity throughout the years spent in Azkaban, strong enough to bear the hardships of the years spent in hiding with her Master… but not strong enough to bear losing him for good. Not strong enough to see him reduced to a human wreck, to a person she should feel disgust for and should trample on… into a Muggle… Her hand made contact with his face and she brushed her fingers lightly across it. Her tired grey eyes met even more tired reddish grey ones, and she knew she was lost. Without him, she was lost. _Potter…_ Rage built up in her, wanting to erupt like a volcano… She forgot about the dozen people standing around, she forgot about Harry being invulnerable, she forgot about everything but her anger. "It's… not… over…" she hissed through gritted teeth, then, in the blink of an eye she turned around and shouted _Avada Kedavra!_ at Harry. 

Harry's body simply reflected the curse, like a polished mirror reflects the sunrays… 

Bellatrix Lestrange's wand fell and rolled to his feet, stopping in front of them, like its owner's heart had stopped beating.   
Harry's eyes were fixed on the woman's pallid face, her eyes staring onto the corridor's ceiling… he pointed his index-finger at her and her eyelids closed. 

It was a weird feeling… A weird feeling to have defeated everyone he'd ever wanted to defeat, yet not feeling the victory, not feeling triumphant at all… 

How long he had wanted to punish Bellatrix for killing Sirius, yet now that she was dead, and Harry didn't feel any different.   
How long he had wanted to punish Voldemort for all the terrible things he'd done, yet now that he was defeated, Harry didn't feel that sort of exhilaration he had always imagined he'd be feeling. 

His eyes shifted to the motionless heap that was Wormtail, lying over Amrita, as though he only wanted to protect her… but he didn't need to protect her from anything anymore, for she was dead. 

It was a bittersweet victory – a victory achieved at the cost of an innocent child's life. 

Don't get all depressed Linda's voice spoke up in his head, and he shuddered, for he had totally forgotten about her presence.__

_Easy for you to say_, he replied. 

Rodolphus Lestrange, who had just regained consciousness dropped to his knees next to his wife. "Bella! BELLA! Wake up, Bella!" 

"My… Lord?" said Macnair in a small voice. "What… what happened?" 

"It's over, Macnair," answered Voldemort matter-of-factly. "Give up." 

"Noooo!" shouted Rodolphus and, releasing his dead wife, he jumped up, pointing his wand at Harry. "Potter! You're going to pay for this!" 

"I don't advise you to try and curse me if you don't want it rebound on you," replied Harry calmly. "Lower your wand." 

"Do as he says," hissed Voldemort. "They've won, Rodolphus." 

"No they haven't! As long as we have you, My Lord…" 

"Look at me, Rodolphus!" shouted Voldemort, as much as a feeble man like him could shout. "See what I've become! A wreck! A scum! A Muggle!" 

"A… M… Muggle?" muttered Macnair, his eyes widening with fear. If everything that their Master was saying was true, then they were indeed lost. Then it was indeed over. 

Game over. 

With a great effort Voldemort hoisted himself up into standing position, leaning against the wall for support. Now that he was on the same eyelevel as his Death Eaters, his piercing eyes met his onetime servants' gazes… and even the stupidest of them, like Goyle, managed to understand what they saw in their Master's eyes: defeat. Surrender. Total annihilation. 

With a clatter a wand hit the floor: Macnair's. Shortly it was followed by Goyle's, and that of a young wizard, Wayne's.   
After about a minute only Rodolphus Lestrange was still gripping his wand, as though his life depended on it… but even he knew that his life couldn't be saved now. He, like all Death Eaters, was in this together with Voldemort, and if Voldemort went down, then so did they. 

His glance fell upon his wife's pale face – his dead wife's face… the finality of it clenched at his heart… yet helped the truth sink in. With a sigh he also dropped his wand. 

"Phaedra, Jason, Gaia, Iphicles," Nausika spoke up, "come with me, let's take care of the Death Eaters left in the library, they might wake up any second. Nessus, Pasiphae, triplets, stay here and help Harry with tying up these," she sent the present Death Eaters a nasty look. 

"Yeah, right." Nodded Jason and headed towards the library from where smoke was still coming in small puffs. Phaedra cast one last glance over her shoulder at Harry, then followed the Chief-of-Circle and her brother into the library. 

While Nessus and Pasiphae magically tied up Voldemort and the Death Eaters, the sirens collected their fallen wands, and Ginny stepped over to Harry, slipping her hand into his, not caring a bit that her husband was looking at her with narrowed eyes. 

Feeling her warm hand slip into his, Harry turned to look at her. Ginny felt her heart sink as their gaze met, for there was nothing but sadness in his eyes. No triumph, no exultation… nothing, but pain. He looked away from her, pretending to be very interested in Fred and George helping the three pretty sirens lead the Death Eaters away. However, she wasn't fooled. 

"Don't blame yourself," she said, squeezing his hand. "V…Voldemort's defeated…" this was the first time she had uttered the Dark Lord's name – she no longer had a reason to fear it. "You won… we won." 

"Yes, we won, but at what price?" He jerked his hand out of hers, his eyes suddenly ablaze with fury. "I had to kill my own child for this, Ginny!" 

"You…?" Her eyes widened. "I thought… I thought V… Voldemort did it…" 

"No, Ginny," he sighed, running his hand through his messy black locks nervously, looking away from her again, "he was using her… as a blood-supply. She was providing him with his magical powers for years…" 

"But… why did he need her blood?" 

"Because…" He leant against the wall just like Voldemort had, for the impact of the events suddenly weighed him down.   
"…because he got involuntarily addicted to my blood after he returned in my fourth Hogwarts year… he made sure he'd get supplies of it, and when he ran out of it… he sent his daughter to me to… to conceive _her_…" He cast half a glance at Amrita's motionless body that was still covered by Wormtail's equally motionless one, then quickly looked away, as though the sight had burned him. 

"Was he using Amy's blood to substitute for yours?" Blinked Ginny. Now it was starting to make sense… She had always wondered who that mysterious woman seducing Harry had been, and even when he'd told her, she still kept wondering _why _she had seduced him… 

Now Ginny understood. Voldemort had been living through the child, living through Harry's blood. 

"Did V… Voldemort run out of…?" 

"Yeah." Harry nodded, still not meeting her eyes, but staring into the flames of a torch on the wall. "I had to make sure he'd totally run out of it, and when he got hold of Amrita, I feared he'd flee somehow and kidnap her again, and… continue living and wreaking havoc. I…" He turned around and stared directly into her serene, brown eyes. "I had to do it. There was no other way… for the blood of a dead person is no longer suitable for Voldemort's magical regeneration… Remember when I told you about the death of my daughter Daphne?" 

She nodded. She still well remembered the cocky Harry dissolving into tears and trembling like a little, scared boy when he relived it for her ten months earlier. 

"I became a murderer then, Ginny, but I didn't mind. Now I've murdered again… and this time I murdered my only child." 

Draco opened his mouth to say 'you're quite wrong, she isn't your only child', but as Ginny suddenly moved closer to Harry and gathered him into her arms, he thought better of disturbing them. He'd tell them later… also, he doubted that even the news of his son being alive would make Potter any happier now – perhaps he wouldn't even be able to understand it, in his current state of mind. 

So in a way totally uncharacteristic of him, Draco turned and left the embracing couple to themselves. The corridor turned a corner and he stopped there, looking back at them, and some sort of bittersweet feeling engulfed his heart. How he had been longing for Ginny's love for years, how he had fought to win her back, and now… he understood that he'd lost her forever… and he understood that Ginny had never even been his. She had always belonged to Harry Potter.__

_Time to move on, Malfoy_, he told himself and rounded the corner, leaving the couple alone.   
  
  


Harry did not know how long they had remained like that: lost in each other's arms, lost in their pain, lost in their love… He wished she'd never draw back, if only they could remain like this forever, to close out the cruelty of the outside world, to close out all noises, all disturbances, just… be in peace. 

However, his wish wasn't granted, for suddenly a shaky little voice spoke up: 

"Geroff, Wormie, you're heavy!"   
  
  
  


**A/N2**: am I getting tooooo predictable? rolls eyes Perhaps. You said she wasn't dead. You were right. Right, we'll - hopefully - meet in two weeks' time. Until then: review, please! 

_shadiow_: after Voldie arrived at the headquarters, Harry had to act immediately, he didn't think of waking Amrita up and telling her to stay in the room. And this way there was more drama ;) 

_kraeg001_: I'd love to see your art, but can you please reduce it to a size under 100 KB? (you can do it in Microsoft Paint easily). And if you're sending it, then please either send it before the 22nd May or after the 2nd June, because I don't want my inbox to flood while I'm away. Thanks. 

_maureen_: nope, you didn't guess what Harry's special power is. Glad you liked Harry thinking he was glad Draco'd knocked up Phaedra :) The wizarding wireless was my fav part of chapter 28 too! 

_TrixieFirecracker_: Lucius was glad that Draco married Ginny, because he knew that would hurt the Weasley parents a lot, and his aim was to cause the Weasleys as much pain as possible. 

_gpotter_: two chapters left. I don't even know what O.C. is. What is it? Some TV show? 

_Elfy19_: see, this time I didn't create a character just to kill her off! 

_Abluebird225_: thanks, but I already have a name for the kid. Thanks for the praise :)) 

_EowynDernhelm_: you asked on checkmated whether the fic was any different there. No. It's completely the same, but it has slightly better grammar. You asked why I didn't tell my CM readers to read the fic here. Simple: then I woudln't have any readers left there at all. 

_katie_: no, you weren't thick, there were only 1-2 people who managed to guess what sort of power Harry got from Voldie. I only failed my exam by one single point. How did your audition go? 

_Paige_: me? A silly goose? Nooooo... ;) 

_BrownPryde_: I'm glad you've started to read Artemis too :) H/G will be reunited with their kid in the next chappie. 

_Chloe Black_: you're going to find out from the next chapter. 

_iNiGmA_: you wrote: _same reason JKR killed sirius?_ No, because we don't even know WHY JKR killed Sirius. 

_blaubaerin_: dunno how I got the idea of the weatherforecast. It just came ;) I'm sure that in PoA Harry won't have a child's voice anymore, not even in the crappy Hungarian version. The synchron actor's voice must have broken since CoS! 

_DarkFlower2113_: Amrita heard Jason and Phaedra's talk when she had already left the kid's bedroom. The silencing charm was only on the kid's bedroom, not on the whole Potter residence. How did Amrita go through the door? Wandless magic, of course. That sort of magic that every magical child does without knowing what they are doing. Like turning your teacher's wig blue ;) I'm glad you think I write sadness well :D Nope, the 30th isn't the epilogue, the 31st is the epilogue. LOL, what you told your mum about you having to read Artemis made me grin. Thanks :D 

_JerryGirl_: I didn't make much of a research, I mostly used what I'd read about the Greek long ago. Glad you're reviewing on both sites! Thanks a lot! 

_emaleth84_: do you STILL want to cry? ;) 

_Swanny_: I'm perfectly aware that Holly is just one metre tall, and that's why I won't make her have sexual relations with Artemis. You have my word for that. My AF fic won't have shagging at all. (Not that it will be a completely innocent fic, because I think I CAN'T write a completely innocent one ;) Anyway, even Colfer said that there'd be a short, innocent romance between Arty and Holly in the fourth book, so I don't feel guilty about writing A/H. And don't worry, it won't be a sappy romance. The romance will be very subtle and more like a Han/Leia sort of bickering than a Romeo/Juliet sort of huuuuuge romance. 

_sweet-775_: I think Magdalena is a beautiful name, not at all evil! 

_Noemi_: jól ismersz ;) 

_HGFics_: thank you very much! Only two chapters left. 

_Any last requests_: thanks for the correction. Yeah, the metaphor was mixed, but I still like it... Rach rolls eyes at Agi now The formatting was delibaretly the way it was. Harry's thoughts had to be italics, but Linda's were between little stars to show that she's talking inside his head. shrugs 

_Sarah Noisette_: where did I find the Greek myth knowledge? Mostly in various books on Greek myths ;) 

_IndiaInk_: thank you very much. Did someone recommend this fic to you? 

_Mistri Tonks' Admirer:_ Harry doesn't need a Shield charm, he's invulnerable, after all. 

_sugareeSWEET-xoxo_: no, there won't be a sequel. I'm not writing another HP fic before book six comes out. I'm writing an Artemis Fowl fic right now (will publish it in a couple of months). 

_C-chan1_: no, Harry didn't care to memorise the ingredients. catches rabid vampire butterflies and puts them into a bug collection Emma Thompson played Beatrice in Shakespeare's Much ado about nothing (her lover was played by her onetime hubby, Kenneth Branagh!). She played the funny scientist in Junior (she was Schwarzenegger's lover in it) and she played in Love actually. She played in Sense and sensibility too. 

_hypnotic-babe_: are you very sad now that Amrita's alive? 

_Mr Strawberry_: I'm spacing out the last chapters because 1. my beta is busy and can't beta too quickly (she only finished betaing this one yesterday), 2. I've been preparing for the journey to Greece. But I must admit reviews are also nice... 

_apwbd_: nice to see you here! On schnoogle I wrote that you'd learn the baby's name in chapter 29, because the chapter 29 on schnoogle will be the same as chapter 30 here (my first chapter on schnoogle isn't counted as a chapter but as a prologue so the chapter numbers are different on the two sites - a bit difficult, LOL). Glad you like my arts. I'm more of a HP fan than Arty fan either, but I like Arty too, so if you like it as least a bit, then you can read my future Arty fic here, coming over the summer or early autumn :) 

_triple5ivesoul_: both things you requested will be in the next chapter. 

_Sonya Kapoor_: thank you very much :D 

_apple-pie_: Draco finds out about Dora in the next chapter. Hehe, you seem to know me too well already ;) 

_Archaos_: this time I sent you a mail announcing the update, but for the remaining two chapters I advise you to either register with ffnet and put me on your author alert list or join my yahoo group and set your account to special notices to get update notes, because I might forget to send you notes for chapters 30 and 31 (not even I can remember everything :) 

_Kit Cloudkicker_: NO :) 

Also thanks to: _arios, Myr Halcyon, Sarahamanda, jnpsmama, Imalil2sarcastic, Houou Kazoku-Kaga, torifire126, rebkos, youknowwho8881, sophianwin, starheart20, Katrina Littlebird, Requiem to a Dream, moonypadfoot, Alexander Phoenix, Sohalia, Eve, HP Luver, shawnculli, carameLisSa, goldenstar555, amidala, Michelle44, Kristus Vesanus, Romina, hi-voltage57, dementorchic, Eclectus, Indigo Ziona, Mery, bambooanime, Crazy Red, Jenni, tez, kneh13, Wizzabee, SiriuslyDelirious, TheSilverLady, Written in Stars, Silvercrystal77, Hannah, kitkat, Destyne, angeleyes53, Wood's secret lover, Lioness-07863_


	30. Trials and Tribulations

**A/N**: I've returned from Greece and had a wonderful time there. In case you're interested in a detailed report on the journey, you can find it in message #3232 in my yahoogroup. There are also photos in the Files/Greece folder. 

It seems to me that ffnet vanished the little stars in my last two chapters. I put everyting what Linda said in Harry's head between little stars, and they disappeared during the uploading process! Annoying!!! Anyway, in this chapter I put Linda's thoughts/speech in italics. 

Sorry for not updating any earlier, but ffnet got infected with trojan viruses and I didn't dare do anything on it, even though I update my antivirus often. 

I must admit that I don't know much about trials, so let's assume that the International Magical Court of Justice works as I described it here.   
  
  


**Chapter 30**

**Trials and tribulations**   
  
_Cursed is the ground because of you,_   
_Through painful toil you will eat of it_   
_all the days of your life._   
_It will produce thorns and thistles for you,_   
_and you will eat the plants of the field._   
_By the sweat of your brow_   
_you will eat your food_   
(Genesis 3: 17-19)   
  


Harry didn't dare believe his ears… he looked in the direction of the voice, and he had to admit that he didn't believe his eyes, either… There she was, struggling to get the unconscious Pettigrew off herself… and she was _alive_. 

How? How could this be possible? She'd died! He'd killed her with his own hands… his own wand, to be exact, so… how on earth could she be alive??? 

Had he not been so shocked, he would have addressed Linda to ask her how this was possible, but for the time being Harry couldn't think of anything else but hurrying to help his daughter out from under Wormtail and gather her into his arms. 

After a while, Amrita drew back a bit to look at her father and was appalled to see him cry. 

"Why are you crying, Daddy?" she asked, her reddish blonde eyebrows knitted in a very adult-like way. 

"I'm just… just… oh, Amrita!" Harry's voice faltered and he pulled her even closer to himself, his whole body shaking with sobs. 

The little girl glanced over her father's shoulder at Ginny, who was beaming down at them, tears coursing down her face, too. 

'What got into him?' Amrita mouthed to Ginny. 

'Tell you later, just let him cry,' Ginny mouthed back, wiping away her tears, but to no avail, for new tears kept replacing the old ones. She seemed to have trouble deciding whether to cry or laugh, so she just chose the most sensible option in this situation: she did both at the same time. 

_In case you're wondering how this is all possible…_ Linda's voice spoke up suddenly in Harry's mind and he shuddered, having forgotten about everything beside the fact that he was holding in his arms his daughter whom he'd believed dead, very much alive. 

_Of course I'm wondering, do you know how…?_ he replied, never releasing Amrita who started to shift a bit nervously in his arms, giving Ginny 'I love Daddy a lot, but when is he finally going to release me?' looks. 

_The spell that I told you… the Helios spell… I only heard about it yesterday from an ancient wizard. Had I known about it any earlier, I would have shared it with you in the Underworld, but this way I had no time to explain what you were doing; I just had to make you do it… The point of this spell is that it makes the victims seem dead, without really killing them. The next time the sun rises; the victims awake from their seemingly dead state. Now that Father has totally lost his powers, they can no longer be restored to him, not even if he tried to use Amrita's blood again… I just had to make sure she seemed dead until Father ran out of all his powers. And sorry for giving you such a heart-ache, Harry… I couldn't do it any other way_. 

Harry squinted at his watch to see that it was indeed a quarter to four – the sun had just risen 

_What would have happened if she'd got struck by the curse in broad daylight? The sun would have been up then, so…_

_I think she would have awoken next morning at sunrise_, Linda replied. 

"Daddyyyyy!" whimpered Amrita, not being able to bear his tight hug any longer. 

"Yes, princess?" He pulled back a bit, tears of happiness still blurring his vision. However, even through the curtain of tears he noticed how red his daughter's complexion had turned. "Are you… are you all right?" 

"Yeah… but you've almost squeezed me to death." She shrugged, not understanding the expression of utter relief spreading on his face. "Are you all right too, Daddy?" 

"Never better," Harry replied, his eyes alight with happiness. 

"Oh, come to Mummy, little angel!" cooed Phaedra and scooped her daughter up from the couch Leto had placed her on. There were some marks of dried blood on the lavender cushion she'd been resting on, and Phaedra's heart clenched at the thought of Voldemort taking blood from her child… "Everything's fine now… the big bad wizard is defeated, and he'll never again hurt my little angel!" 

"Actually, I think you should let her sleep," a voice called from the half-open door, and she turned around to find herself face to face with Draco Malfoy. 

"Who are you to tell me what to do with her?" she said sarcastically. "I could as well have lost her, so I have every right to come and squeeze her a bit. You have no idea what it is like to lose a child, Malfoy. You have no idea how it hurts… how you long to hold your child in your arms again, yet you no longer have the chance…" She looked away and continued talking to the wall, "I never hugged my first daughter enough, I wasn't the ideal mother… and by the time I realised it, she was dead. I no longer could hug her, no longer could show her my love. I decided it'd be different with my second one. She'd get all the hugs I didn't give to Daphne…" She glanced back at him, her expression defiant. "So don't try to teach me how to care for a child! If Dora wakes up and starts to cry, it's fine. At least I hear her voice, while I'll never hear Daphne's again…" 

"Don't take me wrong, Phaedra," he replied in a rather calm voice, as though he'd forgotten about his usual habit of giving her snappy comebacks, "I didn't want to teach you about anything… you're right, I don't know what it means to be a parent… and it's possible I'll never get to know… Ginny will never give me a child." He made a grimace. "But she gave one to your husband." 

"What?" Phaedra's eyes widened. "Didn't you say she was barren?" 

"She used to be, yeah… then… dunno. She just turned out to be carrying Potter's kid. Actually this is why I came back to Greece." 

"Because your wife gave birth to Harry's child? I don't get it." 

"When she gave birth, everyone thought the child was stillborn… even Ginny," he replied, fondly examining the tiny baby in the woman's arms. "She thought the baby had been buried, but… he wasn't. I only found out that he was alive yesterday, and by that time Ginny had left Britain and I felt… I felt I had to make it up to her and tell her that her son was alive." 

"Make it up to her?" Phaedra raised an eyebrow at him. "Wow, Blond Prince turned out to have a heart! Tell me, can you even feel pangs of remorse by any chance?" 

Sticking his hands into the pockets of his trousers, he shrugged. "Maybe. You know… I think I felt it when I left you… back in August." 

"I hoped that you did," she replied sharply. 

"Look, Phaedra, I know it was rather nasty of me, but-" 

"Spare me, okay? There's nothing I hate more than a man apologising." 

"It's just that I…" 

"I said spare me!" she snapped. 

The baby in her arms woke up and let out an almighty wail. 

"Wow. She's a screamer," Draco remarked, "reminds me of her mummy…" 

"One more snide comment and you'll regret you were even born," she hissed through gritted teeth. 

He took a step backwards, "Just not my shin, okay?" 

For a second she looked at him in a confused way; then she burst into laughter. "Sorry, Malfoy! I just love kicking people in the shin… my brother Jason can attest to that, too." 

Little Dora started to cry even louder, her tiny face screwed up and red with the effort of wailing. 

"I wasn't kidding, she's like you in every respect, not just her voice… she's beautiful when she's angry," he smiled down at the bawling baby. 

Phaedra gave him a questioning look. "You think I'm beautiful when I'm angry, too?" 

"Yeah, but only when you're not kicking my shins or calling me a Blond Prince." 

She hid a grin, and then bit into her lower lip as the memory of Harry admitting to have killed his own daughter came to her mind. Here she was, feeling happy that her Dora was safe and sound, while Harry was surely mourning his daughter… 

"What happened?" He frowned, seeing that her face had turned serious, almost sad again. 

"I was just thinking," she replied, sinking down onto the couch, gently rocking Dora to make her stop crying, "that the world is unfair." 

"Unfair? Yeah, in most cases it is… but at least old Tom got what he deserved." 

"But at what price did he get it?" She flashed him with a painful glance. "Harry's daughter had to die for it, Draco. Harry's lost his second child already." 

Draco opened his mouth to say 'good that he has the baby boy and this little one here, then', but before he could utter those words, something else came to his mind. "Didn't… didn't Potter say that Voldemort had been wrong to think Dora was his child?" 

The young witch pursed her lips and stared at the half-ajar door. "Yeah… that's what he said." 

"And Voldemort was stupid enough to believe him? I thought he was good at Legilimency, at least Father told me so. He was supposed to notice all lies…" 

"He didn't notice it, for it wasn't a lie," she replied. 

"Yeah, of course…" He grinned, then, as the meaning of her words dawned on him, the grin faded from his face to be replaced by astonishment. 

"Have you ever been told you don't look good with your mouth open?" she said. 

It took him several seconds for her words to sink in. He gulped and closed his mouth, but his eyes were still widened and almost bulging, making him look like a male version of Loony Lovegood. 

After about a minute of just staring at her, then glancing at Dora, then looking back at Phaedra, then again back at Dora, he finally found his voice. "M… mine?" 

"Brilliant deduction, Blond Prince." 

"Don't call me that!" 

"But I don't want to sleeeeep." Amrita yawned as Harry led her back to the little bed she had climbed out of during the night. 

"Yes, you do." Her father smiled. "But first I think you should get into fresh clothes." 

The child bit into her lower lip. "I didn't want to do it, Daddy, really… it just… happened… when I heard the Death Eater were here…" 

"Oh, that." Harry nodded knowingly. Having played the caring father for Daphne for four years he had noticed the little 'accident' his daughter had had. "Don't worry about it, princess," he said and started rummaging through Daphne's night things that Phaedra hadn't got rid of yet. Finally he fished out a loose nightdress, hoping that it would fit Amrita as well, even though she was almost three years older than Daffy had been when she died. 

"But… but… I'm soooo ashamed, Daddy." 

"Don't be." He knelt down in front of Amrita and grinned up at her, "even I had such accidents at your age, believe me." 

"Did you?" Her green eyes widened. 

"Yup, I was seven when Aunt Marge first brought her bulldog, Ripper along to my foster parents' house, and I got so scared of the vicious dog that I wet myself. My cousin Dudley couldn't stop laughing…" 

"And what happened then?" 

"My Aunt Petunia screamed at me to get out of her sight," replied Harry with a reminiscing expression. "I'll tell you more about them later, okay? Now get changed into this and sleep, angel. You need it." With that he stood up and handed Amrita the nightdress. She took it, but didn't put it on. 

"Daddy?" 

"Yes?" 

"What happened to Grandpa?" 

"You don't need to worry about him anymore… he's defeated. He won't hurt anyone anymore." 

"You promise?" 

"I promise," he said with an encouraging smile. 

"And Wormie? What will be of him?" The child's face radiated anxiety. 

Nausika had collected Pettigrew's still unconscious body after Amrita had miraculously awakened, and Harry suspected she had put him in the same room with his equally disabled Death Eater friends. 

"Well," he said contemplatively, "Wormtail acted a real hero… he turned against Voldemort… I think it'll be a mitigating circumstance." 

"A miti… what?" 

"Listen here." He sank to his knees again. "If I can help it, he won't be severely punished. I might not be able to help him, but… I'll try." 

A hopeful little smile appeared on her face and she swung her hands around Harry's neck and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek. "I love you, Daddy." 

"I love you too," he replied, his heart filled with some sort of wondrous feeling that he had only felt when Daphne had told him the same magical words. He was about to exit the room when she called after him: 

"You didn't want to kill me… did you?" 

He froze in the doorframe, and slowly turned around. "No, sweetie. I didn't." 

"Oh, I see." She nodded knowingly. "You just wanted to scare Grandpa, didn't you? I hope he got veeeery scared!" 

"Yeah, he got very scared." He winked at her and with a last smile left the room, closing the door behind him. 

He found Ginny standing just a couple of feet from the door – she had obviously been eavesdropping. 

"You know, it was really nice of you," she said, taking his hand. 

"What?" 

"To say that you'd try and help Pettigrew. It's very generous of you, after what he did to you… to your family…" 

"You know, Ginny," he sighed, dropping himself on the couch, "Dumbledore once said that everyone deserved a second chance… even Peter does. Dumbledore also said that one day I'd be happy I'd saved Pettigrew's life. Now I'm happy about it. Had I not saved him, who would have cared for Amrita? Who would have loved her? The only person who has given her any love up till now is Peter. Without him her life would have been even more of a hell… and he turned on Voldemort, because he'd thought Voldemort had killed Amrita. He loves her, and she loves him. He has practically been her father so far. He contributed to the death of my parents, that's true, but he saved my daughter in every way one could be saved… for he saved her soul. Without his love Amrita could have easily become a bitter child like Tom Riddle once was, and from that it would have only taken a single step into evil…" 

She bent her head over his shoulder and whispered: "I can't imagine Amy being evil, Harry… She's your daughter. And her soul is so much… so much like yours." 

"That's possible, Gin, but she's Slytherin's heir too, thus susceptible to… turn evil. Wormtail's love and caring brought the Potter out in her, not the Slytherin. And for this, I can only be grateful to him." 

"Mmmm." She nodded, winding her arms even tighter around his neck. "D'you expect there'll be trials?" 

"Yeah. And not just some Wizengamot ones, but very likely their cases will be brought before the International Magical Court of Justice. They're international criminals, after all… as for me…" 

"…as for you?" she muttered sleepily. 

"I'm going to denounce myself for the murder of Lucheni." 

She immediately disentangled herself from his embrace and gaped at him, her eyes widened with shock. "You… don't mean it?" 

"Yeah, I do," he sighed. "Listen, you have to shoulder responsibility for your acts, and I killed the chap. I did it to defend my daughter, well… sort of, but… it's still murder. And I don't want to continue hiding, using others' names… I want to play fair and start everything from the beginning. Start a new life, a life devoid of lies, blackmail, blood-thirst and the sins of the past…"   
His eyes met hers, and he saw the worry in them, so he reached out to take her tiny hands into his. "I want to start a new life with you and Amrita, Gin, but I won't be able to… not like this. I want to do it with a clean record. Even if I have to spend some time in the Labyrinth for it." 

"The… Labyrinth?" She gulped, remembering what Harry had once told her about the famous Greek prison where people usually went mad. "No, Harry, I won't let you! They can't shut you in there! You'd go mad!" 

He couldn't help but laugh. "I promise you I won't. Every day I'll think of you and my daughter, and it'll give me the heart to hold out. Of course only if you can wait for me… for months… perhaps even years. I'd understand if you couldn't, but then please, take care of Amy, will you?" 

Ginny gave him a very nasty look. "How can you… how can you even suppose that I wouldn't wait for you???" Her eyes were practically sending fire-bolts at him. "How can you be such a prat, Harry? I love you more than life itself! How can you-?" 

She couldn't finish her tirade, for he suddenly pulled her to himself and closed her lips with a kiss. "Yo iiiot!" she said, as much as she could talk with his mouth firmly pressed to hers, but he surmised she wanted to say 'you idiot'. And well, he had to admit to himself that he'd indeed been an idiot… she loved him. For a second it flashed through his mind that he didn't even deserve her love.   
  
  


Some time later – Ginny didn't know whether it had been five minutes or half an hour – there was a knock on the door. She got off the couch, careful not to wake Harry who'd fallen asleep in her arms. 

"Draco?" She knitted her eyebrows as she opened the door. 

"Um, yeah… May I come in?" 

"Er…" She looked over her shoulder at her peacefully sleeping lover. "No, let's let Harry sleep. He's exhausted. He's been through a lot." 

"As have we," he pointed out. "We've all fought, remember?" 

"Yeah." She nodded and stepped out, closing the door behind her. "But none of us have been exposed to such emotional pressure as he was." 

"Oh… the child," he said, not having met Nausika after the battle ended, thus not having heard about little Amrita's miraculous awakening. "Look, I'm sorry about her, it must be horrible for him to have lost her, too…" 

"But he hasn't lost her." 

It was Draco's turn to frown. "What do you mean?" 

"Amrita was only seemingly dead… it was to fool V…Voldemort. But when Harry put that charm on her, he truly believed he was killing her. Heavens, I wouldn't want anyone, not even my greatest enemy to get into such a situation… having to choose between saving the world and saving your own child…" 

"Not even me?" He arched an eyebrow at her. 

"You aren't my enemy, Draco." She shook her head in a tired way. 

"Aren't I?" He blinked, barely believing his ears. Ginny should hate him; after all he'd done to her… 

"No. You're a bloody git, not an enemy," she replied with a small smile. "At least… as long as you agree to a divorce. Because if you don't, then I swear I'm going to make your life a living hell. Take that as a friendly promise." 

Draco's face tucked into a grimace. "Don't worry, Ginny, I don't intend to remain your husband. You'd never love me, and it'd ruin four lives, not just ours." 

"You mean Harry, and…?" 

"Phaedra, of course." He shrugged. 

"Ooooh, Phaedra." She gave him an impish grin. "Tell me, Draco, have you seen her daughter already?" 

Young Malfoy's face turned red for some reason. "Um, yeah. And well… she's…" 

"Yours. I know." 

"You know?" His eyes popped. "Who told you?"   
"Harry, obviously." 

"Hah! Potter knows, you know… So everyone knew except for me, the father! I've missed it all, Ginny! The pregnancy, the birth, her first three weeks of life…!" 

"Calm down, and look at the good side of it. You didn't know Phaedra was expecting your child, but from now on you'll have a chance to act the proud daddy. I, however… I'd been expecting my son with love and hope… and fear, yes, but…" She swallowed hard and looked directly into his eyes in an almost accusing way. "I wanted that child so badly. And he died. So don't wallow in self-pity for having missed the pregnancy and the birth, you still have a chance to make up for everything. Be grateful for the mercy of life. Be grateful for your luck, Draco." 

With that she turned to go back into the Potter apartment, however, he put a hand on her shoulder. "Wait." 

"What?" She sighed. "Listen, Draco, if you've come here for my forgiveness, you have it. If you want absolution, then ask God for it and leave me alone. I'm tired." 

"I promise I'm not going to take up your time any longer… I've robbed six years of your life already… I only need one more minute." 

"Fine." She folded her arms with a challenging look. "Fire away." 

"Weren't… weren't you wondering _why_ I've come to Greece with your twin brothers?" 

"Now that you mention it… why?" she said, barely even listening. He couldn't tell her anything anymore that would interest her… 

"I've come to tell you that your baby's alive." 

"Oh, yeah, of coooourse." She rolled her eyes. "Find better excuses, Draco." 

"It's no excuse, Ginny. It's the truth." 

She squinted at him in a bemused way, half annoyed that he was mocking her in her grief over her lost son, half curious to know what had made him come up with such a ridiculous idea. 

"Listen, Ginny, I might have been a bit of a bastard before…" 

"Just a _bit of_ a bastard?" She raised an eyebrow at him in a would-be playful way. 

"What I meant is that despite having been such a… git, I wouldn't joke about something like this. Your son's alive. The elves told me so." 

"The elves?" She gave him an incredulous look. 

"Yes. They wanted to bury him, but when they took him out of the manor, he just… turned out to be alive. Started crying. Apparently they wanted to tell you, but then I caught up with you in the tunnel and they couldn't." 

Her eyes were examining his features, trying to decide whether he was really telling the truth. She didn't realise that her nails were digging into the flesh of her arms so deeply that it almost hurt. At that time she didn't feel physical pain, she'd also forgotten about her exhaustion, all she felt was the turmoil in her heart. "Why… why didn't they tell me earlier?" she whispered finally. 

"I take it because of their evil Master." Draco grimaced. "They were afraid that if they told you, you'd be so exhilarated that you wouldn't be able to hide it from me, and then I'd… _murder_ the kid." He uttered the word 'murder' so carefully, so quietly that it startled even himself. Just a few months ago he hadn't felt bad about threatening her with killing the child, but now… now everything was different. He'd changed. Not much, but it was a change nevertheless. He still didn't regard himself as a good man and he had a feeling that he never would, but the fact in itself that he had feelings other than hatred, jealousy and anger was some sort of a development. "Um, Ginny… I never wanted to kill your kid." He bit into his lower lip, not daring to meet her eyes. "I just thought I did, because I was so mad at you and Potter, but… I don't think I would have harmed him, not even if he hadn't been taken from you, not even if he'd looked like Potter… Now I surely sound like an idiot, but…" 

"…but?" She gave him a challenging look, though she barely could restrain herself from crying out loud, both with happiness and relief, and… anger. Anger that she'd been lied to for a whole month; that she'd been robbed of the presence of her child! 

"You aren't going to make this easy for me, are you?" 

"Why, have you ever made things easy for me?" she countered. 

He took a deep breath and straightened his back, as though preparing himself for something thoroughly unpleasant and difficult.   
"I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. About everything. And… and if you can only be happy with… Potter, then so be it. I won't stand in your way." 

Instead of replying, she just nodded mutely. "Where… where's my son now?" 

"Dobby's taking care of him, so I heard." 

A bright smile appeared on Ginny's worn face. "I wish I could go there right now and collect him!" 

"Why can't you?" 

She heaved a resigned sigh. "Harry won't go back to England, at least not right now. The Death Eaters… I expect there'll be trials, and he wants to be there. And I want to be with him. The baby's in good hands. Harry has greater need of me now."   
With that she turned around and headed back to the door of the Potter apartment. She stopped at the doorframe and looked back at him. "I'm not mad at you, Draco… just so that you know. And thanks for coming." 

He gave her a feeble smile and watched as she disappeared into the room. For some reason he felt as light as a feather… lighter than he had ever felt before. Everything was going to be all right, after all – wasn't it? His wife had forgiven him, he wasn't going to go prison for the blackmail, no one would ever find out that he'd cut Arthur's hair, Big Bad Voldemort was ancient history, and Phaedra had given him a daughter. Well, not that Phaedra would ever have told him had he not come to Athens, but… perhaps, just perhaps fate wanted him to come here and learn about her. _Fate wanted it_, he smirked, savouring the sound of it, _or should I say The Fates?_   
  
  


As he heard the door click, Harry opened his eyes and saw Ginny walk towards the couch he was resting on. Her steps seemed shaky, as was her whole body – she was trembling. 

"Gin?" 

As she sank onto the couch, a sob broke out of her and she buried her face into her palms. 

"Gin, what's the matter?" He pulled her to himself. "Shhhh… everything's all right. Ginny, why are you crying? Has someone hurt you? I'll kill the bloody bastard…" 

With a hiccough she pulled her hands off her face and he was surprised to see that she was smiling – crying, but smiling. The emotions she had managed to contain throughout her discussion with her husband now flooded out of her – she wanted to yell with happiness, cry with happiness, but most of all, she wanted to share her eternal joy with Harry. 

"What happened?" 

"You won't believe it…" she whispered, "actually I don't believe it either, not until I can see him with my own eyes, hold him in my arms…" 

"What are you talking about?" 

"Our son, Harry!" She sniffed and wiped her teary cheeks, beaming with happiness. 

"Our… son?" He frowned. "Gin, I think you should rest a bit. All the excitement went to your nerves. Go, lie down, and when you wake up, you'll feel all right." 

She grasped his hands, shaking her head madly, her hair flying around it. "I'm not mad, Harry! Our baby's alive! Draco's just told me!" 

"Draco?" He raised an eyebrow. "Don't get me wrong, Love, but Malfoy isn't exactly the type of person to be trusted. What if he was just… joking?" 

"No, he wasn't. I know it, I feel it!" she said passionately. "He came to Athens to tell me that my baby's alive!"   
Harry made an incredulous expression. "Malfoy, coming after you to… to do you a favour? Are you sure he didn't come here to catch you?" 

She shook her head. "Then my brothers would have stopped him. But Fred and George came too, to help Draco find me. Don't you understand, Harry? Our little one is alive!" She threw herself onto his shoulder, her arms wound around his neck so tightly that he thought he'd suffocate. 

Could this be true? – he wondered. It was so unMalfoy-like to want to help someone… but then again, even stupid git Draco could change, couldn't he? 

He grinned into her thick, red hair. Despite all the hardships still awaiting him, he felt happy. Happy, and at peace with the world. Perhaps things would turn out all right in the end… There was always hope. When he'd felt desperate, when he'd thought there wasn't a way out of the dark tunnel, a little ray of hope always shone down at him, filtering through the clouds of fears and shadows of self-accusations. There always had to be a storm to make one really appreciate the sunshine… And the sky was getting less cloudy by the second – Harry could almost see the sun. One day it'll be all over, and the sun will shine brilliantly. He just had to be patient. 

_The Hague, a week later_   


"Defendant, the examination of your case before the International Magical Court of Justice has been concluded." 

Harry, the defendant, sent Ginny, Hermione, all the Weasleys and the Circle of Hermes members an encouraging smile. Fred and George gave him the thumbs-up and Mrs Weasley sent him a half-smile that suggested she was about to burst into tears any second. As for Ginny – she didn't smile, but her eyes told him more than a smile would have: her eyes were full of love, support and pride – yes, pride at Harry's courage to confess his crime and to seek a new life devoid of the stains of the past, a life with no more shames. 

The judge cleared his throat: "The charges brought against you are the following: murdering Anacleto Lucheni, offering resistance to the Greek Magical Law Enforcement, misusing other individuals' names, attempted murder of the underage Amrita Rätsel, and finally, deciding without proper authority to make He Who Must Not Be Named immortal, thereby endangering the wizarding population all over the world." 

_It doesn't sound too good, does it?_ thought Harry bitterly. 

_Chin up, Big Boy_ replied Linda. 

_I wasn't even addressing you this time, not fair to eavesdrop on my thoughts._

_Sorry, Harry, I just thought you might need someone to give you heart here._

_Thanks, Lindy, but I doubt that even you could give me heart. I already see it in my mind's eye… the Labyrinth…or Azkaban…_

_You're too much of a pessimist!_

"For the murder of Anacleto Lucheni, you would deserve to get four years in prison," the judge carried on. Harry squinted at his loved ones to see them all gone ashen, "for the attempted murder of Amrita Rätsel you would deserve to get two years, for the unauthorised decision another two years. For the name misuse, six months, and for putting up resistance to the Magical Law Enforcement, another six months. That is, in total, it would make nine years spent in prison." 

There was a sob across the room, and Harry didn't even need to look in its direction to know that it was coming from Molly Weasley. He couldn't – didn't want to - look in the direction of the audience, for he thought his heart would break at the sight of Ginny's face. 

_See, Linda, I had no reason to be optimistic_, he sighed inwardly. For a second it flashed through his mind that maybe he shouldn't have confessed to the Magical Law Enforcement, but then he again thought that living his whole life in hiding and shame would have been worse. Worse than spending nine years locked in some prison? Weeeeell… One thing was sure: he'd taken that step and there was no way to back out now. He had to face the consequences of his actions. His heart clenched at the thought of not seeing his children grow up – he'd be released from prison at the age of 33, after all, and by that time Amrita would be 16 and his son (whom he hadn't even seen yet) 9 years old… But he had made enough wrong decisions. For once he wanted to make the right one. Come what may. 

He took a deep breath and looked up, straightening his back, steeling himself for the final verdict. 

"However," the judge carried on, "in the light of the evidence given by Nausika Kondos and Jason Stephanides, the murder of Anacleto Lucheni happened in self defence. Also, according to at least a dozen people who were present, your attempted murder of Amrita Rätsel was done to bring about the Dark Lord's downfall and save the whole wizarding world. You also denounced yourself, which is a mitigating circumstance. I now ask the jury to deliver their verdict, in each of the mentioned charges. Murder of Anacleto Lucheni?" 

"Not guilty!" replied the foreman of the jury. 

Harry thought he'd heard it wrong. 

"Attempted murder of Amrita Rätsel?" 

"Not guilty!" 

Harry's heart gave a jolt. 

"Unauthorised decision?" 

"Not guilty!" 

Harry's constricted stomach seemed to unclench itself slightly. 

"Offering resistance to the Magical Law Enforcement?" 

"Guilty!" 

"Illegal use of names?" 

"Guilty!" 

"That would make one year spent in prison." The judge nodded. "Any objections?" 

"Yes, your Honor!" replied the jury-spokesman. "The defendant offered resistance to the Law Enforcement in connection with a charge that he has been cleared of. So we suggest reducing his punishment to a warning or a fine. As for the name misuse, Mr Papafotiu does not wish to bring a charge against Mr Potter, nor does Mr Dursley, we have an official statement from him that he does not accuse Mr Potter of anything." 

_Of course, bet the Weasleys persuaded Dudley with the threat of some jinxes if he didn't sign the statement that he didn't accuse me_, Harry thought, hiding a grin. 

The judge cleared his throat again. "In the light of all the evidence and the jury's decision, I hereby fine Harry James Potter the sum of 500 Galleons for offering resistance to the Magical Law Enforcement. The proceedings are closed." 

Harry felt that a great weight was off his mind. As the audience rose to their feet, and most of them surged towards him, he felt his knees go weak. He had managed to hold out through the battle with Voldemort and the Death Eaters, he had managed to overcome his fears and do the 'right' thing when it came to sacrificing Amrita, he had held out through the last week when he'd been questioned by various members of the Magical Law Enforcement, he had managed to stand upright in his trial – yet now that it was all over, he felt like he was collapsing with fatigue, both corporeal and mental. However, before his legs could totally collapse under him, the Weasley twins arrived and gathered him into an over-enthusiastic embrace, like they had done in Harry's third Hogwarts year after winning the Quidditch Cup. 

"Fred, George, you're stifling him!" said Mrs Weasley sharply, but her face was in complete contrast to her determined voice: it was wet with tears. 

Harry was sort of grateful for the twins for holding him, and let everyone shake his hand and pat him on the back; he even allowed each of the sirens to give him smacking kisses on the cheek, for he felt too tired to even say 'stop that, girls, please, I don't feel like singing _What shall we do with a drunken sailor_ now…' 

However, when he came face to face with Draco Malfoy, he screwed up all his strength and stood upright. He felt less hostile towards his onetime archenemy, yet he still couldn't let Malfoy see him weak, could he? 

"I just wanted you to know, Potter, that I'm glad you got off." 

"Thanks, Malfoy." 

Draco nodded and turned away to leave, when Harry called after him: "And thanks for giving evidence in my favour." 

Draco shrugged. "I didn't do it for you, Potter. I did it for Ginny." 

With that young Malfoy walked out of the courtroom, and Harry got sucked into the circle of cheerful people again, not noticing that Phaedra had followed the blond wizard. 

"Draco wait!" 

The young man stopped and doubled back to see Phaedra hurrying to catch up with him. "Yes?" 

"I just wanted to… thank you. Nobody would have expected you to defend Harry as a witness, so… it was really… noble of you to help him." 

"As I've said before, I did this for Ginny, not for Potter," he replied. "Ginny loves him and needs him… and their kid needs a father, too. See, Phaedra, I'm getting all sentimental… kick me in the shin, will you? Perhaps that will make me come to my senses." 

"You know," she said with a grin, "it's always endearing when a man tries to look tough but fails miserably." 

"Do you think I've failed?" He folded his arms, looking miffed. 

"Yes, you have, Blond Prince." Seeing Draco's mouth twitch, she added: "But never mind, it doesn't ruin your reputation of being a git. It just makes you look more of a three dimensional person, and even gits can use a bit of colour." 

"So, you're saying,_ Xena_, that up till now I've been flat and boring?" 

"I didn't say that, did I?" She gave him a grin and walked past him. 

"Hey!" 

"What?" She looked over the shoulder. 

"Where are you going?" 

"Xena's heading home to feed her little warrior princess. Care to join, Blond Prince?" 

"Um, are you _breast_feeding her?" He raised an eyebrow. 

"How else would I feed a one-month-old baby?" 

A delighted smirk spread on his face. "Of course I'm coming, I wouldn't want to miss it, would I?" 

_Two days later, in the same courtroom_   


"Peter Pettigrew! You have been found guilty by the jury on the charge of the murder of thirteen Muggles, the murder of Cedric Diggory, betraying the Potters to the Dark Lord, manufacturing false evidence against Sirius Black, kidnapping Bertha Jorkins, assisting Bartemius Crouch Jr. in attacking Alastor Moody and keeping Bartemius Crouch Sr. prisoner in his own house, also in assisting the Dark Lord in carrying out his plans and keeping the underage Amrita Rätsel a prisoner." 

Peter cringed at the judge's words and by the end of the speech he seemed to have shrunk to half his size. He - who had always had the habit of glancing around nervously, trying to catch people's eyes in the attempt to get them to help him – was now standing there at the dock, his eyes downcast. He wasn't hoping for anything anymore. A life sentence was the only thing he could imagine getting. He just hoped that he'd have a chance to kill himself in prison, so that he wouldn't have to suffer long. He remembered having read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas; it'd been one of his favourite books in his youth. In that book the prisoner, Edmond Dantés, had tried to starve himself to death, always dropping the food out the window and pretending to have eaten it. Perhaps, if Azkaban – or whatever prison Peter was sent to – had windows, then he'd be able to starve himself to death… And then maybe he'd be reunited with little Amrita in the netherworld… When he had come round after the battle, he had found himself among the other tied-up Death Eaters. He could no longer see Amrita, although he would have loved to give her one last hug before her body was buried. So now he had absolutely no idea that the child was alive. 

His knees felt considerably weak and his whole body wanted to sag as he waited for the judge's verdict. A life sentence, for sure… 

"However," the judge carried on, making Pettigrew look up as though struck by a lightning – the word 'however' had been the word he'd least expected – "according to Mr Potter, you took good care of Amrita Rätsel, helping her to hold on, even in the Dark Lord's clutches. Also, according to Mr Potter, Mrs Malfoy and Miss Kondos, you turned against the Dark Lord before any of his current Death Eaters did. The assistance you provided for the Light Side by turning on your master must be also taken into consideration…" 

Peter thought he'd heard it wrong. He hadn't assisted the Light Side, had he? He had merely sent a curse at Voldemort in his mad-with-fury-and-pain state over Amrita's death. It hadn't been assisting the Light Side, had it? 

"…thus, in the light of the mitigating circumstances, the International Magical Court of Justice sentences you to five years in prison." 

A murmur ran down the hall – clearly the audience had expected a longer sentence. Peter couldn't help but look up and glance at Harry, who – however strange it may sound – gave him a faint smile. 

_Next day, the same courtroom_

"Tom Riddle!" the judge's voice boomed through the hall, reverberating off its walls, making the audience cringe. None of them remembered the judge ever addressing someone this loudly and threateningly. 

Tom Riddle – no longer Voldemort, just plain old Tom – was standing in the dock, as upright as he could hold himself, though it required a great effort from him to even straighten his back. It was striking how he'd aged in the past ten days: now he indeed looked an old man. He was over seventy, after all. For a wizard seventy years is nothing, but for a Muggle… 

Tom's eyes no longer were red, they had become grey again – tired, watery grey, almost translucently so. His once smooth, snake-like face had several wrinkles now, especially around his eyes and nose. Although his nose was still flat and seemed to consist only of a pair of nostrils, his face on the whole had a more human quality to it than Harry – or anyone – had ever remembered him having. If someone who had not known him to be the Dark Lord saw him now, they'd think he was just a poor, old, sickly bloke. He indeed looked sick and very exhausted. It is said that we grow old by moments, not years, and this seemed to be particularly true for Tom Riddle. 

"You have been found guilty on the following charges: casting the Killing Curse on over two hundred persons, your own father and grandparents included, casting the Cruciatus and the Imperius on innumerable people, setting a Basilisk on an underage witch, forming an army of dark wizards that is responsible for over fifty attacks on both Muggle and wizarding communities, instigating the kidnap of Alastor Moody, keeping Bartemius Crouch Sr. prisoner in his own house, instigating the sabotage of the Triwizard Tournament of 1994-95, trying to purge Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry of the Muggleborn students and using an innocent child for this purpose, corruption of your underage daughter by forcing her into a sexual relationship against her will, forcing her to use Polyjuice Potion illegally…" 

And the list went on and on, until every single person in the audience felt that their heads were buzzing with all the information of the former Dark Lord's actions. Some of them even started to get drowsy and sat there with drooping eyelids. 

"…therefore," the judge's voice rose in pitch, indicating that he'd managed to reach the end of his endless list, "the Magical Court of Justice gives you a life sentence… a life sentence, that will, in your case, last _forever._" 

Tom looked up, his tired grey eyes narrowed, trying to look hate-filled and menacing, but they didn't manage to convey his emotions properly: to the audience it seemed that he looked frightened, but definitely not frightening. The onetime Dark Lord, whose eyes could always make people cringe, now couldn't even look intimidating. 

"However, we are going to be merciful to you, Tom Riddle," the judge carried on. 

Everyone in the hall looked at him, horrified. How could someone be merciful to a person this evil, to a person who'd annihilated hundreds of innocent people? 

A look of interest appeared in Tom's eyes, though it was barely noticeable. He felt he no longer could be surprised by anything. What was the judge hinting at? Mercy? What sort of mercy? Did he mean that Tom would get a nice cell with a telly, not to be bored in his eternal life? 

"Mercy?" someone asked from the audience in a shocked voice. 

"Mercy." The judge nodded. "And thanks to Harry Potter, Tom Riddle, you are not going to be shut into a cell for the rest of your eternal life. Yours will be a sentence for life… but you'll have to spend it in a different sort of prison. No dark walls, no Dementors… _Muggles_. Like yourself." 

A new murmur ran down the hall, for everyone started whispering excitedly and confusedly. 

"What does it exactly mean?" asked Tom – this was the first time he'd spoken for a long time. 

"You are going to be banished from the wizarding world. We shall cast an irrevocable alarm charm on you that will flare if you try to enter our world again, so we advise you not to try to come back. You will have to spend all your life as a Muggle, among Muggles. You will have to toil away to get food and a place to sleep; you will have to put up with the Muggles who will be unfortunate to be your neighbours… You will have to humiliate yourself before the Muggles who will pay you for whatever job you choose… or to put it correctly: whatever job you are allowed to do… because I doubt if you will find much of a job at your age. I expect you know nothing of the life of a Muggle… well; you'll have to learn it. You will have to learn to live without magic, live your eternal life as a Muggle, surrounded by Muggles. You will learn to respect them and live together with them in peace. Oh yes, Tom Riddle… you will have to humble yourself in front of them, many times… this is your punishment, and be thankful for it. Take him away!" 

The onetime Dark Lord had barely managed to comprehend the judge's words when two wizards grabbed him and pulled him towards the exit. He let them pull him, for his mind was in such turmoil that he wouldn't have been able to put up resistance, even if he'd tried. 

As they passed by a row of seats, his eyes met a pair of green ones, and he suddenly felt wide awake, awoken from his half-shocked, half-dreamy state. "Potter!" he hissed at the young man. "I'll get you for this, Potter!" 

"Give my regards to the Muggles, Tom!" Harry called after him, and, despite the seriousness of the situation, he couldn't help but grin. He had given Tom the coup de grace twice in a row in a short period of time: first by making him immortal when he'd lost his magic powers, then by suggesting to the judge and the jury this peculiar kind of punishment. No doubt, Tom would have been happier to spend the rest of his eternal life in a dark cell than to descend to the world of the Muggles. 

_All's well that ends well, huh? _Linda's voice spoke up in Harry's mind. 

_Yeah, I suppose so, he replied. And you helped in it, Lindy._

_Nah, I didn't help much, only recited a Gilderoy Lockhart suntan lotion slogan! I wish I could have recited his famous toothpaste slogan as well!_

_How do you know these slogans at all?_

_From the newspapers we get in the Underworld_ she replied. _Persy allows us to read them when she's finished with them, and once there was a long article on Lockhart returning from the closed ward. Since his new book Amazing Amnesiac got so popular, he got offers from producers of various healthcare products, and The Quibbler had a long article on Lockhart's advertising suntan lotions and toothpastes._

_Hmm, I see,_ Harry replied, as Ginny took him by the arm and led him out of the courtroom. She had obviously no idea that Harry was conversing with Tom Riddle's daughter. _Well, I think…_

_…it's over now,_ Linda finished his sentence. _It's over, so it's time for me to say good-bye._ Her voice sounded sad in his head, but suddenly it changed to cheerful: _I've got to tell your parents, Sirius and Dumbledore the good news:_   
_Father's degraded into a common Muggle! They'll love it!_

_Er… yeah, they surely will. Well… Listen, Linda, I…_

_Don't speak Harry… words aren't necessary now. Not anymore… Take care of yourself, and… take care of our daughter, will you? Love her for me, too. God knows, she needs more love than an average child… after all she had to go through in Father's hands… Harry…_

_Yeah?_

_Should you one day talk to her about me, tell her I love her more than anyone._

_I will, Linda._

_Thanks. Farewell, Harry._

With that, she was gone, and Harry knew: it was for good. 

He felt some nasty feeling settle into his chest; trying to compress it… he already missed her. Despite the fact that they had had slept together twice, she had never been more to him than a friend – but she'd been a very special friend at that. Not the Hermione-style female-friend-who-was-just-a-friend… she'd been different. Perhaps because she was dead? Harry couldn't really put a finger on it, couldn't really explain the quality of his friendship with Linda, but he was sure he'd never forget her. 

Tears were running down Ginny's cheeks, but this time not out of pain, but out of happiness. She was back in England with Harry, and they were both standing in a small house in Hogsmeade – a house that had a beautiful Harry Potter clock on the wall and a dozen copies of _My Hero, Harry_, lying everywhere: on shelves, on the table, in a glass case, on the bedside table… even on the worktop in the kitchen. 

A little bundle squirmed in Ginny's arms: tiny hands reached out of the bundle towards her, and now – unlike in her dreams – she saw the face that belonged to the tiny bundle. And what a face it was! She thought she'd never seen anything this adorable before… pudgy, rosy cheeks, huge, green eyes, and a frame of thick, messy black hair… 

"May I hold him a bit?" Harry whispered next to her, and Ginny thought that she heard his voice waver. 

"But just a bit, then give him back to me!" she said with a grin, tears still splashing down her cheeks. 

"Awww…" sighed Harry as he got a hold of his son. It seemed it was a lifetime ago that he'd last held a baby. It was an inexplicable feeling, something so warm, so exhilarating… The newborn Daphne had looked very similar to this little boy… but this one wasn't Daphne, Harry reminded himself. For once, this one came from the love of his life and he'd never loved Phaedra. And this one had almost died, while Daffy had indeed died. Harry swore that no power on Earth would take this child away from him and Ginny and that he'd grow up in a loving family. Both his daughters had suffered in their lives, but he wouldn't let this boy suffer. Ever. 

He felt a tug at his shirt, and looked down at Amrita, who was eyeing him and the baby with eyes widened with interest. "Can I see him? Can I?" 

Harry lowered the baby a bit so that the little girl could also look at him properly, and he had to hold back a chuckle when Amrita let out an almighty "Wow!" Clearly she had never seen a baby, perhaps hadn't even known that babies existed at all. 

"Is he my brother?" Harry nodded. "What's his name?" 

"Really, what's his name?" Harry looked at Ginny, who shrugged, and looked at Dobby. 

"He has no name yet," replied Dobby, who had been examining the happy family-reunion from a corner. His wrinkly face was tear-soaked over the joy of seeing Harry again – Dobby, as everyone else, had thought him dead, after all. "Dobby has always called him Baby." 

"He's sort of cute… but why is he so small?" Amrita asked. 

"Because all babies are this small. You were once this small, too, but you don't remember," replied Harry. 

Amrita furrowed her brows. "I don't believe that I was this small. No one can be this small." 

"Then just wait till I show you some baby-photos of yourself." Her father smiled down at her. He had kept all the teaser photos Voldemort had sent him. "You'll see you were once this small… but you were totally bald." 

Amrita's face fell and her hands automatically went to her curly locks. "You mean I had no hair? I won't be bald again, will I?" 

"No, sweetie, you surely won't." Harry reached out with his baby-free hand and caressed her mass of red-gold hair. 

"Whew, that's a relief," said Amrita and again peered into the bundle that was her little brother. "He looks so serious!" 

"Sirius?" Harry squinted at Ginny. 

"Sirius." She nodded, wiping her last tear away, beaming at him, remembering their conversation before they entered the Row of Gods. 

_"Really, if you ever had a son… what would you name him?"_

_"I think… I'd name him Sirius."_

"That's perfect, Harry. I'm sure Sirius would be very proud to know." 

"Perhaps he will know." He grinned. 

"How?" Ginny looked confused. 

"You know, I don't think I can hide my return to England from the press… and knowing Rita Skeeter, she'll want to know all the details… which we won't tell her, obviously. However, we can't hide the fact that we have a child, Gin, and if it gets printed, then Sirius and my family will know it. They get all the newspapers through the Styx-post." 

"Through the what?" 

"Tell you later." The young father smiled. He didn't feel like talking much now, he just wanted to enjoy being with his family – his own family: his soon-to-be wife, his daughter and his son. 

Despite all the difficulties he'd gone through, all the pains he'd suffered from, he had to admit that life wasn't completely unfair. He had lost a child, but gained two instead. 

"Give him baaaack," Ginny pleaded, and Harry gently placed little Sirius into her arms, slipping one of his arms around her waist, resting the other one on Amrita's shoulder. 

"I love you all," he whispered. "Very, very much."   
  


**A/N2: **only a short epilogue is left sigh Review, please! 

_TrixieFirecracker_: no miracle. Harry didn't even know what spell he was casting. 

_kraeg001_: I knew both art sites you mentioned, but thanks :) 

_Elizabeth Darcy_: Harry as Lancelot, Draco as Arthur? LOL :D 

_jnpsmama_: glad you found my approach of defeating Voldie unique. I was bored with killing him off :D 

_Antonia East_: no, Voldie can never get his powers back. 

_Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: I'm glad I could surprise at least one person ;) 

_gpotter_: I hope you got my mail with the url to JKR's website. If not, then here it is, spaced out (because otherwise ffnet would strip it): w w w . j k r o w l i n g . c o m 

_Altec_: I believe I've answered your question in this chapter :) 

_Paige_: how did your finals go? I hope they went well! 

_hypnotic-babe_: no, I haven't heard that song yet. And no, Wormie won't adopt Amrita. 

_katie_: Harry didn't take away Voldie's power, he just 'let' Voldie lose it. The special power he had was to make Voldie immortal. I'm still calling him Voldie, LOL. I love calling him Voldie! I didn't need to retake my exam after all, because I handed in an appeal and they accepted it! 

_BurningIce22_: Voldie can no more get his powers back, so he's no threat to anyone anymore. 

_Requiem to a Dream_: thanks, I hope people will like my Artemis fic too. Actually you can still read the Arty books, you have about three-four months to read them, because I won't publish my Arty fic before autumn ;) 

_blaubaerin_: really? Did my little stars vanish??? annoyed. Stupid ffnet! It stripped them for apparently no reason! 

_BrownPryde_: glad you liked Eternity Code. That was my fav of the three AF books. Which one was _your_ fav? 

_EowynDernhelm_: the reason why my fic is way behind on CM is that I started to post it there months after I started to post it here. At first I didn't even want to post it there because I was afraid I'd get a damn lazy and slow beta, but then I got to know Lina who turned out to be a CM beta and she suggested that I post my fic on CM and she offered to be my beta. She has been betaing quite quick so far :) However, in the near future there won't be quick CM updates, because Lina will be working over the summer and won't have an Internet connection too often. She's a lovely person by the way, I met her in Greece! 

_LuluIsALobster_: I never stated that she was indeed dead! I was only hinting at it ;) 

_sugareeSWEET-xoxo_: only one chapter left, a short epilogue. No, I haven't posted any Artemis fics yet, I will post my AF fic in autumn, I want to complete it before I start posting it (I have only written ten chapters so far and I expect it to be at least 20 chapters long). 

_carameLisSa_: there used to be an Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1867 and 1918, but now Hungary and Austria are two separate countries (but they are neighbours). I hope you'll like Austria, I have been there three timdidn't see it, because when we went there, there was such fog that we couldn't see anything of the mountain itself). Also, if you can, take a trip with the small train up the Schneeberg, it's a wonderful experience! And by all means visit Vienna (Schönbrunn and the Prater are 'must visit' places). 

_Swanny_: please read my comment to gpotter. I haven't read Bernarda Alba, but heard about it. No, I can't speak Greek, only Hungarian, English, German and very little Russian. Of course now I know a dozen Greek words, but that's all. My fav Greek word is homofilofilos ;) (in case you're wondering, it means gay) 

_DarkFlower2113_: yup, I don't like AF as much as HP, but AF is currently my number two fandom (HP being the first and Star Wars being the third). I don't like Juliet that much, but I liked her way better in the third book than in the first one. Eternity Code was my fav of the three too (yay for Arty/Holly!) Did you know that Colfer promised a short, innocent Arty/Holly romance for the fourth book? Can't wait to read it! (but it only comes in June 2005 sob) 

_apple-pie_: Dite sends your her love :) 

_C-chan1_: I've been an avid supporter of the 'evil Percy' theory for quite a while. Hullo, Piece O'Crap, nice to meet you! 

_tez:_ as I mentioned in this chapter, Voldemort cannot get his powers back anymore. 

_kawaii_: I suggest you read my trilogy. In the third part (The Greatest Enemy) you will find almost all elements you listed in your review. It's an evil fic. Really eeeeevil! 

_Inken_: certainly H/G will go back to Britain. That's their real home, after all. 

_sophianwin_: I hope my explanation was good enough :) 

_Romina:_ Voldie in McDonald's? Heavens! :D 

_TigHan_: I never read anything about Harry's parents coming back. And Rowling said very clearly that Sirius ISN'T coming back either. 

_mary-v_: I'm glad you liked my version of Voldemort's defeat :D 

_Hues of Blue_: thanks for the prayer, everything went fine (well, almost. See details in my journey report in my group). 

_Lavendar Brown_: of course I remember you, I remember all faithful readers/reviewers! Nice to see you again! 

_Indigo Ziona_: glad you liked my version of Voldie's defeat and Harry's emotions afterwards. Chapter 29 was the hardest to write of the whole fic, so I'm happy it turned out okay! I too hate fics in which Draco is nice for no reason... 

_DraginLover_: don't worry, nothing happened to me, but to ffnet - dang that trojan viruses! I haven't seen the movie yet, I'll see it on Thursday. 

_kawaiinoshojo_: I'm going to see PoA on Thursday. 

Also thanks to: _Kit Cloudkicker, D Torres, Lioness-07863, arios, ima, kneh13, maureen, torifire126, emaleth84, bambooanime, Sarahamanda, HP Luver, Alexander Phoenix, Natalia, Hawthorne, Chloe Black, moonypadfoot, Hannah, Imalil2sarcastic, vietgurl0607, DraginLover, goldenstar555, Silvercrystal77, Golden-Eyed-Vamp, sweet775, Abluebird225, JerryGirl, Any last requests?, SnowflakeGinny, mery, iNiGmA, Mr Strawberry, Mistri Tonks' Admirer, Araidel, apwbd, goldenellcrys, CiaHottie, Written in Stars, rebkos_


	31. Epilogue

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: for a change I'm answering your reviews before the chapter. 

**Some of you asked whether there would be a sequel. My answer is NO. I'm not even sure if I'll ever write a HP fic again. It depends on how much book six inspires me shrugs However, I promise that if I like book six at least a little more than I liked OotP, then you WILL get a new HP fanfic from me. Either put me on your author alert list or join my group (checking 'special notices' if you don't want any other mails), and then you'll be the first to know :)**

I'll come out with an Artemis Fowl fanfic sometime in autumn. If you like Fowl and would like to read the fic, then look back on my ffnet profile in September. If you haven't read AF yet, then you still can, you have a few months before I publish the fic ;) See a sneak preview of it at the bottom of the page. 

Some of you asked whether I'd seen PoA and how I liked it. Well, I've seen it, found it quite good, but I liked the first two movies better. Somehow I felt that the first two had more of a 'Potter feeling', this one somehow lacked it. But the music was better than in the first two, I loved it! Buckbeak was wonderful and so was the whole scenery. I liked these Scottish mountains way better than the backgrounds of the first two movies. As for Thewlis... noooo. He isn't Lupin! Just isn't Lupin! Thompson as Trelawney was brilliant, though. So was Oldman as Sirius. But Pettigrew... runs off and screams Please, do NOT imagine 'Wormie' in my fic as the Pettigrew in the movie! My Wormie is ugly, but not THIS ugly! He's actually cute, not that monster that was in the movie!   
Okay, enough said. 

**And now, to the reviews:**

_ruffled owl_: interesting idea to write a fic about Voldie living as a Muggle. However, I don't think I'll write it. Should you feel like writing it, you have my permission just mention in your A/N that the idea came from my fic :) Or perhaps I'll start a challenge in my group about 'My life as a Muggle by Voldemort'. What do you think? It would be a funny fic challenge... 

_Sarah Noisette_: for the time being I'm writing an Artemis Fowl fic that will be publish in autumn. I'm not sure about HP fics... perhaps after book six. We shall see. 

_Houou Kazoku-Kaga_: hm, I don't know whether Peter will live with the Potters after he gets released from prison. But it might happen ;) 

_C-chan1_: I'm not a fan of any slash, neither R/S, nor H/D. To separate story sections I usually use little stars or just put lots of enters between two parts. It is possible that when uploading, ffnet 'steals' my Enters? Yup, I keep bringing up Gildy's name because I can't write a HP fics without mentioning him at least ten times, LOL. I'm glad you thought my serious/Sirius thing didn't sound cliché. Glad your cat came back, and I HAVE read the new chappie of Cliché Catalogue. What? Ffnet removed it? WHY??? It was one of the few HP fics that I still liked :(( Glad you like my Greek pic. This means it got uploaded to sugarquill. Shame I haven't seen it uploaded yet, because I haven't been able to view SQ for days. For some reason my stupid Explorer opens a completely different site! The word Dudley said in chapter 1 of PS: shan't. So, you got the book after all? 

_blaubaerin_: yup, it seems ffnet is now stealing my Enters as well! I don't know about the sentences given for murder, but if there are mitigating circumstances, then it can be a shorter punishment, don't you think? Hm. I won't become a lawyer for sure. Unauthorised decision was that Harry made Voldie immortal without asking anyone's opinion. It's possible that the MUGGLE Hague doesn't have jury, but the magical one does ;) IMHO immortals can grow old too, but never die. There was one mytology story (Greek, perhaps? I'm not sure) in which a woman asked eternal life for her lover, and her lover got it, but he grew old and got very, very ill, yet never died. It was rather a curse for him, not a blessing. I haven't yet seen any polls on JKR's site, I barely looked around there, haven't had the time yet. 

_sophianwin_: I meant the 'worlds' thing like this: if Voldie tries to enter any wizard-inhabitated place, the alarm goes off. So he cannot enter Diagon Alley, Hogwarts or any house in which magical people live. 

_Indigo Ziona_: please read my answer to _ruffled owl_. 

_maureen_: I'm working on the Artemis fic right now, I'll publish it in autumn and I promise you'll get a new chapter every week :) 

_sweet775_: I only saw about the first 20 minutes of Jesus Christ superstar - I stopped because I didn't like it. Was there a trials and tribulations thing in there? Just wondering... 

_emaleth84_: I too love everything in connection with myths. Actually my next fic (the Artemis Fowl one) will have some Aztec myths in it... 

_TigHan_: I'm not going to post any HP fics for quite a while - perhaps never again. It depends on whether I'll get a new idea for a HP fic after book six. My next fic is the Artemis Fowl one, but as I remember, you don't like Fowl :( 

_carameLisSa_: I'm sure it's worth seeing a tirolean folklore show. I saw a Greek one in Greece too and loved it a lot! 

_Inken_: please read my answer to _ruffled owl_. I agree, Peter should have got more than 5 years, but I can't help, I got attached to his character and since Amy loves him so much, I didn't have the heart to give him a longer punishment. 

_katie_: please read my answer to _ruffled owl. _The 'if you had a son what would you call him?' line comes from chapter 12. Actually two pics were photoshopped - the Thermopylai one in the 'miscellaneous folder' (I put 'Alex' there) and the second one is 'Falaf Alley' (also in the miscellaneous folder). 

_Noemi:_ Harryt azért állították bíróság elé gyilkossági kísérlet vádjával, mert amikor ráküldte a gyerekre a spellt, õ maga is azt hitte, hogy megöli, és ezt - amilyen becsületes a drága - bevallotta a rendõrségen. Tudod: becsületes és kissé butuska a mi Harrynk ;) 

_hypnotic-babe_: I even saw several buildings that the Athenias were building for the Olympic games. None of them seemed ready yet... 

_Elfy19_: Sirius doesn't have a middle name. I don't think it's necessary. I don't have a middle name either - so am I not a real 'character'? ;) A trojan virus is a not too dangerous one, it doesn't really screw up your computer, but it steals your passwords and gives them out to someone who shouldn't know them. At least that's what I heard the trojans do. 

_DarkFlower2113_: there isn't a real twist in this epilogue, but I hope it still won't disappoint. Glad you like my Greece-based arts. Don't be depressed, in autumn you can read and review my AF fic. Arty/Holly rulez! You'll be shocked, but for the time being my absolute favourite pairing is Arty/Holly, I love it even more than Harry/Ginny! my gosh, what got into me? 

_sugareeSWEET-xoxo_: Voldie is too weak to wreak havoc anywhere. 

_Hues of Blue_: no, I haven't read the Wish list. Is it another child story or one for adults? Where do I get my names from? Myths, books I've read and I also have a book on baby names. I got the name Amrita from that book. I was looking for someting unique and found a name meaning 'draught of immortality'. I immediately knew that it was what I needed :) 

_Everything-Is-Illuminated_: thank you very much :) I'm happy to be one of your fav H/G authors. Funny that on H/G fanfic sites I never get popular... wonders why 

Also thanks to the following for reviewing chapter 30: _Mistri Tonks' Admirer, BrownPryde, Chloe Black, fan, arios, Silvercrystal77, SnowflakeGinny, goldenstar555, gpotter, jnpsmama, Requiem to a Dream, kneh13, Lioness-07863, Hawthorne, Paige, BurningIce22, Imalil2sarcastic, Hannah, kraeg001, Wizzabee, dementorchic, SeekerGinny, CiaHottie, EowynDernhelm, introducing ginny, Tyster, HP Fantasy Lover, moonypadfoot, Andrea, iNiGmA, Abluebird225, The Flying Moose, Lady Marie, angeleyes53, torifire126, celiawong, mary-v, Shawanad, Myr Halcyon, Written in stars, Any last requests?, CharmYourCheese, Saraiyu_   
  
  


**Chapter 31**

**Epilogue**   
  
On her way back from Hagrid's cabin, Headmistress McGonagall almost had a heart attack when Harry Potter suddenly turned up on the Hogwarts grounds, Dobby bouncing around him happily. 

"Mr… Mr Potter!" She grabbed her chest, feeling that her heart wanted to jump out of it. "Are my eyes deceiving me, or is it… is it really you?" 

"You can be sure, professor, it's me," Harry replied. 

Minerva gave him an incredulous look, as if trying to read his features, trying to find out whether he was telling the truth. "What did I offer you after you had come to me with Dolores Umbridge's letter that said you had talked back to her in class?" 

"As far as I remember, a biscuit." He grinned. 

A relieved expression spread on the old headmistress' face as she stepped to Harry, and – to his greatest surprise – gathered him into an almost motherly embrace. "So good to have you back, Mr Potter. Everyone thought you to be dead. We even had a memorial, and…" 

"I know." He smirked. "And I've heard about the statue as well – I'd like to see it. I heard it had been destroyed, but was restored it to its original state. 

"Come, this way." McGonagall beckoned to him, feeling a bit weird about taking someone to his own memorial. 

Five minutes later they were standing in front of the Potter Memorial, whose white marble glittered in the early afternoon sunshine. 

"Beautiful, isn't it, Harry Potter, sir?" said Dobby admiringly. 

"Actually, I think it's horrible," remarked Harry. "Not that the sculptor wasn't talented, but…" 

"Don't apologise, Mr Potter, I agree with you a hundred percent," replied Minerva with a small smile. She had never liked this statue, for it depicted a way too old and serious Harry, while she liked remembering him as the cocky boy who had kept talking back to that toad Umbridge. She only kept the statue in the Hogwarts park out of reverence. 

"Then it's settled," said Harry. 

"What?" 

"Let's get rid of it. I'm not dead so no memorials are needed. Don't you agree, professor?" 

"Well..." McGonagall looked unsure what to say. "Where could we put it, then? If we restored it, then it wouldn't be proper to just blow it up or Vanish it again, would it? Yes, Dobby?" She looked down, feeling that the house elf was tugging at her skirt. 

"Headmistress McGonagall, madam, Dobby would love to have this statue! It would be the crowning glory of Dobby's humble garden!" 

"Er…" Minerva looked at Harry, who shrugged. 

No house elf had ever been as happy as Dobby had that day: he had got two 'Harry Potter presents': the real one had returned from 'death', and he had become the proud owner of the only existing Harry Potter statue. Years and years later he added several new rooms to his tiny house and opened the world's only Harry Potter Museum and Shop, in which the lucky guest could view not only the famous Potter Memorial, lots of Harry-clocks, Harry-patterned tableware, and newer and newer editions of _My Hero Harry_, but also a huge collection of wonderful socks in glass cases with one black sock placed into the most luxurious glass case. The inscription on the little tag next to it said 

_'The first ever sock Dobby got from Harry Potter_   
_1993'_

* * *

_Azkaban_

Peter Pettigrew was staring at a particularly dirty spot on the floor. He didn't know how long he had been staring at it; it might as well have been hours. He had only been brought into this cell a week earlier, but he had already lost track of time. Although the sunshine barely came through the cell's window and he could only see a small rectangle of the blue sky outside, it would have still been bright enough to read; yet he didn't feel like reading. He had been allowed to bring along his books, for no other forms of entertainment had been provided here, but he just couldn't bring himself to open any of them. 

Azkaban had changed a lot over the last few years: for one thing, the Dementors had long since been dismissed and replaced by professional jailers, who treated the prisoners much more humanely than the Dementors ever had. One could have said that Azkaban had become a tolerable place. Even the other dozen Death Eaters who had been sent here could say that their next 10-100 years at Azkaban would be more or less bearable. They got their sentences depending on the number and type of the crimes they had committed in the Dark Lord's service, and the youngest Death Eaters who had been considered by the court as 'poor, misled youngsters' got only 10-20 years. The hardcore dark wizards who had been serving Voldemort for decades had got life sentences. 

So, Wormtail with his five years sentence was downright lucky. He had been offered a chance to be put into a cell with other prisoners to keep him company, but he turned it down – he wanted to be alone. Alone with his thoughts. 

He still couldn't come to terms with the fact that Amrita had died. The little girl's lifeless body haunted him in his dreams, and didn't leave him any peace of mind in his waking hours either. Sometimes he saw the little girl playing with her vampire dolls and laughing, or drawing a picture of her 'family', but at the end her lively form always dissolved and was replaced by the image of her lying on the corridor's floor, her red-gold locks falling over her closed eyes like some curly curtain… 

A sob escaped his mouth and he shuddered, sitting on a patch of straw; however, he couldn't shed anymore tears. He had cried too much already, he felt he no longer had any tears in him… so he just cried while his eyes remained dry. 

Five years! Five whole years spent in here! Five years with Amrita's picture haunting him every day and every night! And not just during these five years… no… Peter was sure that the child would keep reappearing in his dreams even after he was released from prison. She'd be his sad companion throughout his life… 

He wasn't sure at all whether he _wanted_ to wait for his release from Azkaban. Perhaps he should really die… then the terrible nightmares and frightening daytime images would be gone forever. He'd find peace… and perhaps he'd find Amrita. In the afterlife. 

Suddenly some noise caught his ear. It sounded like Benjamin, the jailer; however, it wasn't the time for him to come… Wormtail was sure that it was barely past ten o'clock, he had long received his breakfast and lunch wasn't due for another two hours. What could Ben want here, then? 

The door of his cell creaked open and the jailer walked in. "Pettigrew, you have visitors." 

Wormtail thought he'd heard it wrong. Who would want to visit _him_? He didn't have any family members left, and he surely didn't have any friends, so… _who_? 

"Potter…" he whispered as Harry walked in. 

"Just call me Harry… Peter," said the visitor in an unusually soft voice. 

"What… what are you doing here… Harry?" croaked Pettigrew. "You've come for a thank you for getting the judge reduce my sentence to five years? Well, thank you." He looked away from Harry, trying to show that he wasn't in the mood for having visitors. 

"No, Peter, I haven't come for thank you's. I've come here to talk to you… about Amrita." 

Wormtail raised his head and looked at the young wizard with narrowed eyes. "What about her?" 

"I know you truly cared for her, Peter," said Harry. "And I'd like to thank you for that. You gave her love when I couldn't. Your love for her saved her from turning like… Tom did." 

"It still wasn't enough to save her life!" snapped Peter, jumping up from the ground. "V…Voldemort still killed her!" 

"He didn't," replied Harry. 

"W…what?" stammered the onetime Death Eater. 

As a response Harry looked in the door's direction and beckoned to someone with his head. 

Peter looked at the door, and thought he'd died and gone to heaven. 

A little angel in a white, frilly dress entered, her red-gold locks dancing around her head… and as she caught a glimpse of him, she yelped 'Wormie!' and ran up to him. 

Peter was practically blown away by the 'angel's' attack; he could barely stand upright with her clinging to him and her arms encircling his waist and her face buried into his chest. 

With his mouth agape, Peter looked up at Harry, who was smiling, then back at Amrita, then at Harry again – his smile seemed real, Peter couldn't detect any sort of deception in it. He glanced down at the child again, and slowly reached out to touch the top of her head with his left hand. Her curls felt real under his fingers, and her grip on his body felt very much real as well. 

'You're stifling me,' he wanted to say, but he realised he couldn't produce any sort of voice. Although he had thought his tears had ebbed, now they were freely flowing down his cheeks, onto Amrita's red-gold locks. 

"Why?" he whispered, when he finally found his voice. "Why have you brought her here?" 

"Are you talking about me?" Amrita drew back a bit, giving Peter a slightly annoyed look. "Why _wouldn't_ Daddy bring me here?" 

"Because… because this is a… prison, dear. No place for children," Pettigrew replied, gently caressing her now wet curls. His eyes met Harry's. "You needn't have brought her here. She shouldn't have seen this… seen me here." 

"She wanted to see you," Harry said. "She wouldn't leave me alone until I agreed to bring her to her 'Wormie'. And you know, Peter… I thought you deserved to know that she was alive… and you deserved to see her." 

"I don't deserve anything but a life sentence, Harry." Pettigrew hung his head. "I should have got a life sentence." 

"Perhaps yes… perhaps no. If I only looked at your past, the old Peter who had betrayed my parents, then I'd say that you deserve what you got and even more. But if I look at the new Peter, the Peter who redeemed himself, then I just can't be mad at you anymore. You've changed." 

"I have not." Pettigrew shook his balding head. "I'm still the coward, still the disgrace to the name of wizard and the house of Gryffindor…" 

"Gryffindork?" Amrita interjected. "Were you a Gryffindork, too, Wormie? You told me Daddy was one, but you never said you were one too!" 

"Yes, dear, I knew." Peter smiled down at her, and as a tiny sunray shone into the cell, he suddenly saw himself reflected in the child's clear green eyes. He was there: ugly, balding, but smiling… The old Peter, the traitor Peter had barely ever smiled. It had been Amrita who had made him smile again, after years and years of sadness. She had been his little sunray, the sunray that shone through the darkness of his heart and warmed him from inside… the sunray that had cleansed his soul. Harry Potter had been right. He'd changed. He'd changed – for Amrita. 

"I love you, Wormie. Do you know that, too?" The child beamed at him. 

Through the curtain of his tears he looked down at her and nodded. "I know. And I love you too, little angel." 

"Hey, visitor time is over!" the jailer shouted gruffly from outside. 

Wormtail's heart clenched. Would he ever see his precious little princess again? 

As if she had read his mind, Amrita let go of him and said cheerfully: "I'll come and see you soon, Wormie!" 

Peter looked at Harry questioningly. The young wizard nodded. "I'll bring her here as often as I can. I owe you this much." 

"You don't owe me anything, Harry." The onetime Death Eater shook his head. 

"Perhaps you're right… once I saved your life, and you owed me a wizard's debt… but you settled it by taking care of my daughter. We're done. However… I still feel I have to do this. Not for you, but for Amrita. Well, take care, Peter." 

"I will." Pettigrew nodded, and gave the child one last hug. As he watched his visitors leave, he felt that now he had a reason to take care of himself – he no longer wanted to starve to death - he no longer wanted to die. He wanted to live, for now his existence had a meaning again… 

* * *

_The garden of the Three Broomsticks, 26th August, 2004_   


_"I swear to love and honour you, in sickness and in health, and to be faithful to you as long as I live…"_

This time Harry had found it considerably easier to say the weddings vows than the last time – for this time he really meant them. When he had given a similar vow to Phaedra, he couldn't help but feel that he was lying and making a fool of himself – he couldn't help feeling that it was just a ruse, that he had been a mere actor playing a role. Now, however, he meant every word that left his mouth, and he was determined to keep his promise: he'd love Ginny and remain loyal to her till the day of his death – and, knowing the Underworld – even after that. 

_"I swear to love and honour you, in sickness and in health, and to remain faithful to you as long as I live…"_

This time Ginny didn't feel as though she were just reciting some 'let's-get-over-it' waffle that didn't mean anything to her – this time she meant every word she uttered, and seeing the bright smile on her fiancé's face, she felt tears coming. Last time she'd cried at her wedding, for she had been miserable – now she cried because she was so happy. Never in her life had she felt such eternal happiness… so she just held Harry's right hand and smiled, tears of joy coursing down her cheeks. For a second she thought that Harry's eyes seemed wet too, but perhaps she had just imagined it. She felt that her hand was slightly shaking when Harry slipped the wedding ring on it, and the shaking became so bad that she almost dropped the ring she wanted to put on Harry's finger. 

_"Hereby, in accordance with the power bestowed upon me, I pronounce you husband and wife."_

As Harry's lips descended on hers, she felt deaf and dumb for a second – she didn't even hear the cheer of the guests or the crackling of Fred and George's Wildfire Whizzbangs. She just kissed him, the suppressed passion of six wasted years bursting out of her… She grabbed his untidy black locks (that he had tried to tame for the wedding – without much success) and held him firmly in place. She only drew back when her index finger got caught in something (Fred shouted: 'high time you stopped it, we were already worried someone had cast a Permanent Sticking Charm on you two!'). 

Her eyes widened when she realised what her finger had been caught in – in her 'blinded by happiness' state of mind she hadn't even noticed that Harry was wearing an earring. Seeing her bemused stare, he leant closer and whispered into her ear: "You said you found Captain Harry Sparrow darn sexy with that earring. I was giving thoughts to grow my hair and wear a pony tail, but I didn't want your mum to beseech me the whole evening to let her cut it." 

She giggled. "I love you, Captain, with or without an earring." 

"Glad to hear, _Hera_. May I ask why…?" He pointed at the peacock feathers she had stuck into her hair. 

"Didn't you say _come on, who'd like a woman with peacock feathers sticking out of her head_?" She grinned. "Just wanted to test you." 

"With or without peacock feathers, I love you." He bent down to kiss her again, but before their lips could touch, they had to jump apart and out of the way of a red-coloured Weasley's Wildfire Whizzbang (that formed a heart with the letters H and G in it). 

The firework started to chase Rita Skeeter, the only journalist who had been allowed to be present and report about the wedding. After she had helped Harry by writing that particular article in _The Quibbler_, Harry had sort of learnt to trust her, and as long as Hermione was near, he didn't need to worry about Rita writing made-up stories about him. Rita had been the fortunate one who had got the chance to have an exclusive interview with Harry about his return to Great Britain and Voldemort's defeat. Thanks to Rita, the wizarding community of Great Britain soon knew everything about the trials at The Hague, Harry getting divorced from the mysterious Greek witch, Draco Malfoy getting divorced from the Weasley girl, and even about sightings of the ex-Voldemort cleaning streets in Surrey. 

Amrita (wearing a lacy pink flower girl dress) squealed with delight, while the Weasley twins doubled up with laughter as their firework chased the unfortunate journalist across the garden, and they only stopped laughing when three fabulously pretty women walked up to them. 

"They hit it off well with the sirens, eh?" Harry turned to his best man, Ron, who smirked, while Hermione, who was Ginny's bridesmaid, made a disapproving face. Not far from them, Mrs Weasley, holding her grandson Sirius, was eyeing the twins and the sirens with even greater disapproval than Hermione. 

"Mum doesn't seem too happy about it," remarked Ginny, smoothing her 'ancient Greek' wedding gown. 

"Well, when is Mum happy about something?" said Ron. 

"I could name some cases," replied Harry, "for example ickle Ronnie getting his Prefect badgie…" 

Ron rolled his eyes. "I meant she's never happy about her children having relations out of wedlock… she's been nagging me to marry Hermione for years! Honestly…" 

"You said it as though it were such a terrible idea," young Miss Granger said scathingly and walked away. 

"I just wanted to propose to her," Ron grunted, pulling a small jewellery box out of his pocket. 

"Then you should have phrased it in another way," Ginny pointed out. 

"Yeah, it sounded as though you really had the emotional range of a tea-spoon," added Harry. 

"Very funny." Ron grimaced and ran after Hermione. 

As the Potters exchanged an 'it's high time for these two to get married' sort of stare, Remus and Tonks stepped up to them to congratulate them 

"Oh, my little godson!" said Ginny and took the Lupins' baby, Brian into her arms. The little boy's christening had been a month ago, along with Sirius'. As Tonks had promised her almost a year earlier, Ginny had got the honour of being Brian's godmother, and in return Remus became little Sirius' godfather. 

As Harry watched Ginny play with Brian - jumping out of the way of Rita who was followed by a firework and the firework followed by the giggling Amrita, he could barely imagine that just one year ago he had returned to England, mourning his lost daughter, not even hoping to find his other one, his heart full of bitterness and despair… Now all the bad things seemed to have become hazy, he couldn't have properly recalled them even if he had wanted to. And, quite understandably, he didn't want to. 

His gaze shifted to Hagrid and Hedwig who was sitting on the half-giant's shoulder. Hagrid sent him a wide grin and even the owl's amber eyes seemed to be sparkling with happiness. After Harry had talked to McGonagall about removing his memorial from Hogwarts, he had visited Hagrid and apologised to Hedwig for his rude words from so many years earlier. The owl had been beside herself with glee to see him alive and forgave him for everything. Harry smiled at the memory of Hedwig's excited twittering at seeing him again. Good old Hedwig… 

He only came out of his blissful reverie when Draco Malfoy stepped up to him, followed by Phaedra. 

Harry had known they had been invited to the wedding, yet he felt a bit surprised to see them. He hadn't really expected them to turn up, especially not haughty Draco Malfoy. However, Phaedra didn't seem a bit unhappy or jealous to see her former husband marrying another, nor did Draco look murderous about seeing Ginny in 'Potter's' arms. The only conspicuous thing Harry noticed about Draco was that he was sporting a black eye. 

"Er… congratulations…" said Malfoy in a low voice, as though it had taken him a lot of effort to utter something as soppy as this. 

"Yeah, congrats," added Phaedra with a small smile. "I hope you'll be really happy together. You deserve it." 

"Thanks to you both," replied Harry, glad to see that his ex-wife behaved totally naturally, without any trace of jealousy or sadness. For a moment he wondered whether Malfoy's 'wand' had worked wonders on Phaedra… "Um… what about… you two?" 

"Us?" the dark haired witch raised an eyebrow at him. "What _about us_?" 

"I meant that you have a child, after all, and…" 

"Well, Potty," Malfoy drawled, "Phaedra and I have decided to share the parents' duties… in other words we're bringing Dora up together." 

"Glad to hear it." Harry smiled. "Does this mean you're getting married?" 

"We never said that, did we?" Phaedra gave him an impish look. "Though… Jason would be happy if we did." 

"Yeah," grunted Draco, pointing at his black eye, "got this from him yesterday when Phaedra finally confessed to him that I'm the baby's father." 

"I take it Jason wasn't charmed." Harry smirked. 

"It seems my dear bro hates Draco even more than he used to hate you," Phaedra said with a slightly malicious grin that made Draco scowl at her. 

Harry had to hide a grin. Malfoy was in for a rough life at Phaedra's side, especially with Jason as his future brother-in-law. And knowing Phaedra, she would surely manage to 'tame' Draco a bit as well. Well, Draco definitely deserved it… 

* * *

Holding his wife in his arms, snuggling his nose into her neck, Harry felt at peace. Ginny pressed her back to his naked chest and pulled his arms even tighter around her. She felt his ragged breath on her skin and had to grin – no wonder he was out of breath, it had been a very tiring wedding night, indeed. 

The newly engaged Ron and Hermione had volunteered to take care of Amrita and Sirius for the night so that the newlyweds could devote all of their attention to each other. 

"We're in their debt, you know," Ginny whispered. "It was so nice of them to let the kids sleep at their place… I don't know what I would have done if Sirius had started to cry every ten minutes like he does all the time…" 

"Does this mean you would have been very unhappy if we had had to stop the… um… fishing?" he whispered back. 

"_Fishing_?" She turned her head slightly to look at him and saw that his eyes were glinting mischievously in the darkness of the room. 

"Well, weren't you dying to get hold of that eel?" He cocked his head. 

"Eel?" She decided to play along. "I thought that was a toad…" 

"A toad?" He jumped, pretending to be shocked and looking quickly under the bedcover. "Whew. No Umbridge here… you almost gave me a heart attack." 

She chuckled into her pillow. "Well, that's a relief. I wouldn't want to share my bed and you with any Hogwarts professors." 

"Not even with Trelawney?" 

"Of course not! I'd be so jealous, because you seem to have always had something for her…" she said with a smirk that wasn't visible in the darkness, but it was sort of audible – at least Harry was sure she was grinning like mad. 

"Oh yeah, I _did_ have something for her," he replied, sprawling on his pillows lazily. "Especially after she predicted that I'd live to a ripe old age, become Minister for Magic and have twelve children…" 

"Well, you can't be Minister, dear, for you have a criminal record," she pointed out, running her index finger idly across his chest and it made him shiver – with cold or with desire, she couldn't tell. 

"Yeah, that's right," he said in a slightly hurt voice, "but you could still give me twelve children…" 

"Dream on, Potter," she laughed lightly and placed a feather-light kiss on his chin. 

"I _am_ dreaming." He suddenly reached out and jerked her onto himself. She squealed and playfully tried to get free, but he held her firm. "I am dreaming, Gin…" he repeated again, his eyes boring into hers. She couldn't make out much of them in the semi-darkness, but the way they glinted as the sun-about-to-rise painted the horizon with a whitish-pinkish hue, she knew that Harry's eyes radiated nothing else but love. She felt that her heart wanted to jump out of her chest with happiness, and for a second she feared she'd only dreamt this and she'd wake up to realise that she's still Draco Malfoy's wife… but no. Harry's arms on her back felt real, so did a certain eel making her aware of his renewed desire… It was real, and Draco belonged to the past. To the past, and to Phaedra's future. She had to smile at the irony of life: those two had gone after her and Harry to separate them, and they ended up together. It seemed that fate – or The Fates? – had a weird sense for humour. 

"Actually," he continued in a lustful voice, "even if I ever got to be Minister, you wouldn't have to give me twelve children." 

"No? How good for me," she teased as the first ray of the sun shone into their room, illuminating Harry's face. 

"No." He grinned mischievously. "I already have two. You'd only have to give me ten."   
  
  


**THE END**   
  
**A/N2**: over. sobs Hope you liked this little 'Greek journey', I enjoyed writing it a lot, and enjoyed getting your wonderful reviews. 

**Big thanks to everyone who ever submitted a review for this fic, especially for those who reviewed at least ten times (and reviewed up to at least chapter 24 before I finished posting the fic) - they are: _Alexander Phoenix, apple-pie, Altec, Any last requests?, blaubaerin, Bamboo Anime, BrownPryde, C-chan1, Chelsea of the Moor, CarameLisSa, DarkFlower2113, dementorchic, Embyr Black, Elizabeth Darcy, Elfy19, enna seawave, goldenstar555, Hi-voltage, hypnotic-babe, Houou Kazoku-Kaga, Hedwig55, Indigo Ziona, Inken, iNiGmA, jnpsmama, Imalil2sarcastic, Kit Cloudkicker, Katrina Littlebird, kneh13, kitkat, katie, Lioness-07863, Mery, Mistri Tonks' Admirer, Mlle Katie Bell, Myr Halcyon, maureen, moonypadfoot, Noemi, OfTheWest, Paige, ruffled owl, rebkos, Romina, Requiem to a Dream, Swanny, Sarahamanda, sweet775, TigHan, Tap Dancing Widow, TrixieFirecracker, torifire126, Wizzabee, Wood's secret lover, Written in Stars, Shawanad_**

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And now, a sneak preview of my Artemis Fowl fanfic to pique your interest ;) 

_"Well then, Commander Short," said Artemis, munching his toast, "I'm all ears… although I highly doubt I'd be interested in whatever you've got to say. The only thing that would be of any interest to me is a huge pile of fairy gold… but I suspect it's not what you want to talk to me about."_   
_"Right, it's not about gold. But I bet it will interest you."_   
_"Fire away, then," replied Artemis, licking a bit of marmalade from the left corner of his mouth. Holly shuddered. She had never thought that she'd ever find such a gesture sexy… She pinched herself. It hurt. Well, at least she managed to keep her head._   
_She took a deep breath. Here we go… "Artemis… it's about-"_

So, what exactly is it about? Something that will upset Artemis's safe and comfortable world, sending him through the Mexican jungle and thousands of dangers. However, risking his life is not enough, he also has to put up with the 'irritating' Holly Short...   



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